1.14. Holiness in the Methodist Revival
CHAPTER XIV HOLINESS IN THE METHODIST REVIVAL So far we have considered Holiness as set forth in the Old and New Testaments : and in ch. viii. we paused for a moment to consider the intrinsic excellence of the New Life there depicted in symbol and in reality. We come now to consider this doctrine as it was apprehended and preached by the leaders of a movement which has permeated and raised the entire religious thought and life of the Anglo- Saxon race.
Indisputably the Methodist Revival had its source in the religious experience of John and Charles Wesley. Of these, the latter still speaks to us in his hymns : and the evolution of the inner life of John Wesley lies open to us, in good part, in his various writings. From this last we have a treatise entitled A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, written evidently in A.D. 1765 : see Wesley s Works vol. xi. pp. 381 note and 444; and compare a letter reprinted in his Journal and dated 14 May 1765. In this treatise, Works vol. xi. p. 366, we read: "In the year 1725, being in the twenty-third year of my age, I met with Bishop Taylor s Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying. In reading several parts of this book, I was exceed ingly affected ; that part in particular which relates to purity of intention. In stantly I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts, and words, and actions ; being thoroughly convinced, there was no medium; but that every part of my life must either be a sacrifice to God, or myself, that is, in effect, to the devil. Can any serious person doubt of this, or find a medium between serving God and serving the devil ?
" In the year 1726, I met with Kempis s Christian s Pattern. The nature and extent of inward religion, the religion of the heart, now appeared to me in a stronger light than ever it had done before. I saw, that giving even all my life to God (supposing it possible to do this, and go no farther) would profit me nothing, unless I gave my heart, yea, all my heart to Him. I saw that simplicity of intention and purity of affection, one design in all we speak or do, and one desire ruling all our tempers, are indeed the wings of the soul, without which she can never ascend to the mount of God.
" A year or two after, Mr. Law s * Chris tian Perfection and Serious Call were put into my hands. These convinced me, more than ever, of the absolute impossi bility of being half a Christian ; and I determined, through His grace, (the absolute necessity of which I was deeply sensible of,) to be all-devoted to God, to give Him all my soul, my body, and my substance."
We have here, in its essence and fulness, the doctrine of Holiness as set forth in symbol in the Old Testament and applied in the New Testament to men and women in all positions in life, as expounded in this volume. See especially Law s Christian Perfection, where the title of ch. ii. is : " Christianity requires a change of Nature : a new life perfectly devoted to God." Also below : " It implies an entire Change of Life, a Dedication of ourselves, our Souls and Bodies unto God." This thought dominates the whole book.
Wesley then quotes a sermon preached by himself in A.D. 1733, before the University of Oxford ; adding " his was the view of religion I then had, which even then I scrupled not to term perfection. This is the view I have of it now, without any material addition or diminution." He then appeals to hymns translated or published by him ; and to a sermon published by him in 1740, and entitled "Christian Perfection." After a long series of quotations, with here and there retractions or modifications of opinions formerly held, Wesley sums up his treatise on p. 444, " This is the whole and sole perfection, as a train of writings prove to a demonstration, which I have believed and taught for these forty years, from the year 1725 to the year 1765."
It is worthy of note that, in this long and full chronological account of his own experience and of his subsequent teaching, Wesley does not mention the great spiritual crisis described in his Journal for 24 May 1738, in which he entered into joyful assurance of the favour of God. Yet indisputably this crisis was the great turning-point of his life, the transition from the comparative barren ness of his earlier years to the abundant and successful evangelism described in the subsequent pages of the Journal. Nor does he, in the treatise on Christian Perfection, lay emphasis on faith as the condition and means of obtaining this great blessing. Yet, in the months preceding the crisis of May 1738, he was carefully investigating the nature of justifying faith, which he describes in Sermon i., preached within a month of his obtaining peace with God. Moreover, in Sermon xliii., on the same text, Ephesians 2:8, published as a tract in 1765, about the time of the publication of the treatise on Christian Perfection, he asserts as follows : " I have continually testified in private and in public, that we are sanctified as well as justified by faith. And indeed the one of those great truths does exceedingly illustrate the other. Exactly as we are justified by faith, so are we sanctified by faith. Faith is the condition, the only condition, of sanctification, exactly as it is of justification. It is the condition : None is sanctified but he that believes; without faith no man is sanctified. And it is the only condition : This alone is sufficient for sanctification. Every one that believes is sanctified, whatever else he has or has not." In the same sermon, Wesley describes clearly and well " that faith whereby we are sanctified ; saved from sin, and perfected in love." We may almost say that the Plain Account of Christian Perfection needs to be supplemented by Sermon xliii. It is not unlikely that with this purpose the sermon was written and published. See also Sermon Ixxxiii., where the same account of Sanctifying Faith is given.
Comparing the above dates, we see that John Wesley began to seek the Holy Living and Christian Perfection described by Jeremy Taylor and William Law before he began to seek forgiveness of sins ; possibly before he became conscious of his great need of forgiveness. This need was brought home to him by his felt failure in Georgia; and finds pathetic expression in his Journal for Feb. 1738, when reviewing the results of his sojourn there : " What have I learnt myself in the mean time? Why, (what I the least of all suspected,) that I who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God." This lesson, well learnt, was abundantly worth the long journey. And Wesley had learnt more than this : he had found teachers able to guide him further. Yet for twelve long years he had been earnestly, though unsuccessfully, seeking the holiness set before him by Taylor and Law. The explanation of Wesley s silence about the blessing found in May 1738 is probably that the Plain Account of Christian Perfection was written to meet a special need, viz. to prove that through out the forty years from 1725 to 1765 he had taught the same doctrine about Christian Perfection, in reply to some who said that he had changed his position ; that these opponents admitted and asserted (see Journal for i Nov. 1762) that sanctification is by faith ; and that therefore it was needless to re-assert this important truth. This sanctification was correctly described by Taylor and Law, and became in 1725 the object of Wesley s eager, though unsuccessful, effort. But they did not teach that it may be obtained here and now by faith. This serious defect, of which Wesley complains in letters to W. Law dated 14 and 30 May 1738, left him for many years in the wilderness of a vain search. From this twilight Wesley was in part delivered by the teaching of Peter Bohler and of Luther about Justification by Faith. But Wesley s sermon (No. xl.) on Christian Perfection, written in 1740, has the same defect ; and suggests that he had not then learnt clearly that sanctification, like justification, is obtained here and now in the moment we believe. His concluding words are, " Let us press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus ; crying to Him night and day, till we also are delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God." But in Sermon xliii., as we have seen, the full light shines. In his Journal for i Nov. 1762 John Wesley says that he and his brother had known and taught instantaneous sanctification "above these twenty years." This implies sanctification by faith. The " twenty years " take us back to 1742; and suggest that, in the Wesleys, the great doctrine of Justification by Faith received within some four years its needful complement in the doctrine of Sanctification by Faith. The above account of the teaching of John Wesley receives remarkable confirmation in the hymns of his brother Charles, in which we find, in a larger measure than in the writings of John Wesley, holiness represented as unreserved devotion of all our powers to God, and this expressed in language borrowed from the ancient ritual. As examples, I may quote from The Methodist Hymn-Book the following :
HYMN 561.
Lord, in the strength of grace, With a glad heart and free, Myself, my residue of days, I consecrate to Thee.
Thy ransomed servant, I Restore to Thee Thy own ;
And, from this moment, live or die, To serve my God alone.
HYMN 562.
If so poor a worm as I May to Thy great glory live, All my actions sanctify, All my words and thoughts receive ;
Claim me for Thy service, claim All I have and all I am.
Take my soul and body s powers;
Take my memory, mind, and will, All my goods, and all my hours, All I know and all I feel, All I think, or speak, or do;
Take my heart but make it new.
HYMN 583.
End of my every action Thou, In all things Thee I see :
Accept my hallowed labour now, I do it unto Thee.
Whate er the Father views as Thine, He views with gracious eyes ;
Jesus, this mean oblation join To Thy great sacrifice.
HYMN 584.
Thy bright example I pursue, To Thee in all things rise ; And all I think, or speak, or do, Is one great sacrifice.
HYMN 588.
Jesus, confirm my heart s desire To work, and speak, and think for Thee ;
Still let me guard the holy fire, And still stir up Thy gift in me.
Ready for all Thy perfect will, My acts of faith and love repeat, Till death Thy endless mercies seal, And make the sacrifice complete. A close parallel to Wesley s Sermon, No. xliii., expounding Sanctifying Faith, is found in Hymn 557.
I cannot wash my heart, But by believing Thee, And waiting for Thy blood to impart The spotless purity.
While at Thy cross I lie, Jesus, the grace bestow, Now Thy all-cleansing blood apply, And I am white as snow. The blessings conveyed, by these and many other similar hymns of Charles Wesley, to the hearts of unnumbered thousands, wherever the English language is spoken, cannot be measured. And the various writings of John and Charles Wesley contain abundant proof that the Methodist Revival was due to the doctrines of Justification and Sanctification by Faith apprehended by the Wesleys as the in spiration of their own life and fearlessly preached, by them and others, to all who would hear them. In my Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, I have endeavoured to show that the above two doctrines are the chief elements in Paul s orderly statement of the Gospel he preached ; the former being stated, defended, and illustrated in Romans 3:21 v., and the latter in chs. vi. viii. Similarly, in the introduction to the Fourth Gospel, while asserting that the Word was with God in the beginning and was God, and became flesh and dwelt among men, the writer asserts also that to those who believe in His name He gave " a right to become children of God," and that these were " born from God : " John 1:1-14. Also in ch. iii., which was evidently designed to be an outline of His teaching, Christ asserts, in 5:16, that " God gave His only-begotten Son, in order that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life." This statement, frequently repeated by the same writer in various forms, is an exact counterpart to Paul s statement that " the Gospel is a power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." With this compare John 7:38-39 : " He that believes in Me, from within Him shall flow rivers of living water. This He said touching the Spirit which they who believe in Him were about to receive." This marvellous promise found in the Methodist Revival a marvellous fulfilment. It is scarcely too much to say that this Revival was due to a rediscovery, and wide-spread proclamation, of the central elements of Christ s message of salvation.
It is worthy of note that the Evangelical doctrines of Justification and Sanctification by Faith assume and rest upon the doctrines of the Divinity of Christ and of His Death as the mysterious means of our salvation, Himself raised from the dead. These great Catholic doctrines have been held even in ages of spiritual darkness. They are a needful foundation for, but they need to be supplemented and illumined by, the glad tidings of pardon of sins for all who believe and a new life inbreathed by the Spirit of God into all who put faith in Christ. To a still earlier rediscovery of the same two doctrines of Justification and Sanctification by Faith, was due the German Reformation. For, in spite of many details in which Wesley differs from Lather, a comparison of their writings, especially of Luther s Commentary on Galatians and his treatise on Christian Liberty, reveals a deep underlying harmony between these two epoch-making teachers, in reference both to Justification and Sanctification. That the two greatest and most helpful religious movements since the days of the Apostles were due to a similar cause, points to the source of strength in all Evangelical work. The hope of the Church today is, and its strength has ever been, the Gospel of salvation through faith in Christ. The relation between the teaching of Luther and that of Wesley is still closer than mere agreement. In his Journal for 24 May 1738, Wesley tells us that it was while listening to the reading of a work by Luther that he obtained assurance of the pardon of sins. A few days earlier we find Charles Wesley reading to others Luther s Commentary on Galatians. See the new Standard Edition of Wesley s Journal, vol. 1. pp. 475 f, note. Moreover Peter Bohler, who more than anyone else was the means of leading both John and Charles Wesley to saving faith, was a Lutheran, as was Spangenberg, with whom Wesley was associated in Georgia. See Journal, as above
Wesley s doctrine of Sanctification by Faith was anticipated, not only by the Pietists in Germany, but at the same time by the Quietists in Spain, Italy, and France ; especially by Molinos, a Spanish priest, (1640- 1 697,) who had the friendship and approval of several cardinals and of Pope Innocent XI. ; and by Archbishop Fenelon (1651-1715) and Madame Guyon (1648-1717) in France. Of the teaching of these two last, a full account is given in Upham s Life of Madame Guyon, which contains long extracts from Fenelon’s Maxims of the Saints, a work written in defence of the teaching of Madame Guyon. See also Madame Guyon s Autobiography. 1 In the writings of Fenelon and Madame Guyon, and indeed of Molinos, we have the fundamental teaching of Sanctification by Faith in the phrases afterwards used by Wesley. We have Sanctification by Faith compared with Justification by Faith, and great prominence given to Faith as the condition and means of the indwelling of Christ in the hearts of His people; also the phrases " Entire Sanctification " and "Christian Perfection." In the writings of Madame Guyon, amid much which delights and helps us, there are opinions we cannot approve. But evidently these two French writers and Molinos had learnt the great secret, which Wesley learnt later, that God is waiting here and now to breathe into all who in faith accept His promise, by His Spirit dwelling in their hearts, a full salvation from all sin and a new life of unreserved devotion to God. This profound agreement, the similarity of phrase, and Wesley s high, though discriminating, commenda tion of these French writers, suggest 1 The Autobiography is published by Kegan Paul Co. ; the Life and Maxims by Allenson.. irresistibly that he learnt this great truth, in part, from them. That Wesley edited An Extract of the Life of Madam Guion, and his strong praise, mixed with serious criticism, reveal the deep impression made upon him by her writings and personality.
Thus from various nations, differing widely in their religious history and modes of thought and life, came spiritual influences destined to create, through the Wesleys, a new and better era in the religious life of the entire Anglo-Saxon race.
Having said this, I venture to add that the term Christian Perfection, borrowed by Wesley from William Law, (see below,) seems to me a very unsuitable name for the experience which Wesley had in view. As I have shown on pp. 120-124, the English word perfect is a misleading rendering of its Greek equivalent. For it suggests an attainment not needing, or perhaps not admitting, further progress ; and leaves out of sight the contrast be tween adult age and childhood so conspicuous in 1 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:14-20, Ephesians 4:13-14, Hebrews 5:12-14, where the same Greek word is used. As used by William Law, " Christian Perfection" was an ideal ever to be kept in view, but one to which, like the supreme example of Christ, none can ever absolutely attain. On the other hand, Wesley constantly uses the term as synonymous with " sanctification" and "cleansing from all sin," which he says usually or frequently takes place instantaneously. But no one springs at once into manhood.
While thus discarding this English phrase as an inadequate rendering of a Greek word, we must ever remember that the experience Wesley had in view is of infinite importance. Nothing weakens the power of the Gospel today more than the childish immaturity rebuked in the New Testament passages quoted above, and still prevalent in all Churches. Moreover Wesley s own word instantaneous embodies important truth. In our struggle with sin and with our own sluggishness and selfishness, we have no need to wait for a partial and gradual salvation from sin. God is ready, as Wesley teaches in Sermon xliii., here and now to save us from all sin and to fill us with His Spirit : and this full salvation is the shortest path to Christian maturity. But this last is reached only by the slow development of character, a development to which there is no limit. The best phrase to describe this full salvation is that frequently used by Wesley in Sermon xliii., " Sanctified by Faith." For the distinctive feature of the doctrine before us is that, to all who accept in faith His promise so to do, God gives His Spirit, who, by uniting them to Christ, breathes into them the devotion which God claims. In this doctrine, faith is a distinct and essential element, and therefore ought to have a place in the term used to describe it. Moreover this term affords a useful parallel, observed by the Quietists and by Wesley, to Paul s phrase, " Justified by Faith," in Romans 3:28; Romans 3:30; Romans 3:5:1, Galatians 2:1; Galatians 2:6. The phrase " Sanctified by Faith " is not found in the New Testament. But in Romans 6:19; Romans 6:22 we have the word sanctification as a description of the devotion of themselves to God to which Paul calls his readers : and, as I have shown on p. 98, the fore going words in 5:11, " reckon yourselves dead to sin, but living for God," are an exact description of the mental process of sanctifying faith. The term " Entire Sanctification," used by the Quietists and by Wesley, is also suitable, as describing the consecration of all we have and are. This sense of entirety is very conspicuous throughout William Law s treatise on Christian Perfection. It is also suggested in the absolute separation of the holy objects of the Mosaic ritual from all else. The defect of Law s book is the absence of mention of Faith as in a unique sense the means of sanctification. To this important element, the term " Sanctification by Faith " gives due prominence.
Another point in Wesley s teaching needs to be carefully guarded. At first sight Sermon xliii. may suggest that they who put faith in Christ obtain at once complete annihilation of all inward tendencies towards evil, that henceforth temptation will find no ally in their hearts, and that they will be as pure as we may suppose Adam to have been when first created. If so, to them the conflict and probation of life are over. For temptations from without are dangerous only so far as they are aided from within. But, as I have shown on p. no, the teaching of the New Testament does not necessarily imply annihilation of these inherited tendencies to evil or of the influence of formed habits of sin. For these tendencies and influences do not defile unless we yield to them. But they are an abiding danger. From this danger, against which, in many cases, our own moral strength is powerless, God will save, even the worst who put trust in Him, so completely that these inward tendencies to evil will neither enslave nor defile. They who have full victory over each temptation as it arises are already saved, and therefore cleansed, from all sin. They are "guarded in the power of God through faith : " 1 Peter 1:5. For the above teaching, I cannot claim definitely the authority of Wesley. Apparently, in the presence of his own unswerving loyalty to God and simple faith, temptation to known sin had little power. It seemed to him to be only an influence from without. His temptations and danger lay in another direction. But the teaching on pp. 110-112 is, if not demanded by, yet in harmony with, his whole teaching.
Wesley did good service by calling attention, in Sermons xiv. and xliii., to a state of mind leading up to sanctification analogous to the " repentance " which leads up to justification. But in these excellent sermons the idea of holiness is limited to salvation from all sin, except a passing reference in each to loving God with all our heart. The central conception of holiness, viz. unreserved devotion of all our powers to the service of God, is not mentioned. Yet this was the first lesson in holiness which Wesley learnt from William Law. It is very conspicu ous in Charles Wesley s hymns. All else flows naturally from it. For devotion to God involves salvation from all sin ; and is ever ready to burst into a flame of love to God. This central idea should be prominent in all teaching about holiness.
We can now trace the chief influences which moulded the thought and life of the Wesleys, and through them the Methodist Revival. These influences may be divided into three; (i) English, (2) German, (3) other influences, chiefly French. i. As quoted on p. 153f, John Wesley mentions four books as having helped him in his earliest manhood, by Jeremy Taylor, Thomas a Kempis, and William Law, representing the best thoughts about personal religion then current in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. From these books Wesley learnt the great fundamental doctrine of Holiness, as set forth in the Mosaic Ritual and brought to bear in the New Testament on the everyday life of all the followers of Christ, viz. that One infinitely greater than ourselves, our Creator and Lord, claims the unreserved devotion to His service of all our powers. To this claim, a young student of keen intelligence and immense activity, with all advantages of education and brilliant prospects at the University, gave an unreserved and earnest response. This early consecration bore abundant fruit throughout a long life of ceaseless toil : it was the seed from which sprang the Methodist Revival. Of these four books, the third seems to have had on Wesley the greatest in fluence. He began to read it in 1726, the year of its publication ; took it with him to America in 1735 ; and read it to various persons on the voyage and in Georgia. The text of Wesley s sermon on " Christian Perfection," viz. " Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect," is printed on, and was probably taken from, the title-page of Law s book : and, of the influence of this book on Wesley, his writings bear many indica tions. Evidently to this source is due Wesley s phrase, " Christian Perfection," his favourite term for the ideal Christian life ; and apparently the prominence he gave to the new birth into a life of victory over sin. But this teaching, correct and all-important as it was, did not give Wesley peace, or save him from the failure confessed at the close of the First Part of his Journal, written on his return from Georgia. The lessons learnt in this preliminary period were only a solid experimental foundation on which was afterwards built, with materials from other sources, a structure of doctrine and experience in which he found both peace for himself and guidance and strength for successful service.
2. Another clearly-marked influence came through Wesley s Moravian fellow- travellers to America; and more espe cially through their leaders, the Lutheran Pietists, to whom he was afterwards in troduced. Spangenberg s question on 7 Feb. 1736 found an answer in Wesley s doctrine of the Witness of the Spirit ; and to Peter Border, a young man of twenty- five, was given the honour of explaining to the future evangelist the nature of Justifying Faith : see his Journal. Nothing in the story of the Kingdom of God is more significant than the picture of Wesley at Hernhuth in Aug. 1738 listening to the testimonies of a carpenter, a knife-smith, and others, and recording their words in what is now one of the classics of the English language. It is an interesting proof of the value of the inward experience of others as a help even to educated inquirers.
Equally significant is the record of 24 May 1738. " In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate St., where one was reading Luther s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation : And an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." In a note on the same page of the Standard Edition of the Journal we find Charles Wesley reading to others the Preface to Luther s Commentary on Galatians. These references trace back to Martin Luther s writings and to the Pietist Revival in Ger many, the wonderful change which indisputably came over the Wesleys soon after their return from Georgia.
Thus the Wesleys learnt the great fundamental doctrine of Justification by Faith. But, from Sermon xl., we inferred on p. 159 that John Wesley did not at once obtain the sanctifying faith which, several years later, he so well described in Sermon xliii. This great lesson, Luther learnt at Rome and teaches in his Commentary on Galatians. Wesley also learnt it, possibly from Luther : but in his teaching about it we detect another line of influence.
3. Already on p. 166f. we have found in the writings of Molinos, Fenelon, and Madame Guyon, i.e. among the Quietists of Spain, Italy, and France, remarkable anticipations of Wesley s teaching and phraseology about Sanctification by Faith as distinguished from Justification by Faith. That Wesley was so greatly in fluenced, both in thought and phraseology, and helped, by English and German writers, and that he translated and published a large part of Madame Guyon s chief work, her Autobiography, suggests that in his own clear teaching about Sanctifying Faith he was aided by these writers. If so, at two points, in Thomas a Kempis and the Quietists, the Theology of the Methodist Revival owes something to Roman Catholic writers. It is painful to remember that, in consequence of their teaching, Molinos was incarcerated by the Inquisition, Madame Guyon in the Bastille, and that Archbishop Fenelon was practically condemned to silence. The above historical sketch is full of instruction for all followers of Christ, especially for those who are set in the Church to feed and train the Flock of Christ. Four points demand special attention. i. The Gospel of Christ assumes and rests upon the broad moral principles common to all races and ages, and embodied in the moral teaching of the Pre-Christian and Non-Christian nations, appealed to by Paul in Romans 2:14-15 as " the law written in their hearts," by which the Gentiles will be judged. This natural morality, interwoven by the Creator in the heart and thought of all men, is summed up, in its best form, in the golden rule of Christ, "All things so many as ye would wish that men should do to you, so also do ye to them." This broad foundation of all morality may be called the Law of Righteousness.
2. Embracing and supplementing this natural law, we find, underlying the New Testament, the higher Law of Holiness, viz. that God claims from all His servants the unreserved devotion of all their powers of body and mind, of all their time and opportunities, to work out the purposes of mercy for which He sent His Son into the world. This higher morality, including and supplementing all lower forms of it, is a new and distinctive feature of the religion founded by Christ ; and is the standard by which is and will be measured and rewarded, both now and in the Day of Judgment, the faithfulness of all His servants. This lofty standard, severe as it may seem, is erected for us by the infinite wisdom and love of our Father in heaven. He claims our devotion because only thus can we attain our highest good. The call to sacrifice is a call to infinite blessing for ourselves and others.
3. Judged by this standard, all sin and selfishness are at once condemned as inexcusable and shameful rebellion against infinite wisdom and love. In this Court of Holiness every mouth is shut and all the world stands guilty before God. We cannot atone for the past : and many efforts prove that we cannot obey for the future. We can only cry " God, have mercy on me, the sinner." The cry is heard. The herald of the Gospel announces, " Be it known to you, brethren, that through this Man, to you, is proclaimed forgiveness of sins ; and that, from all things from which ye could not be justified in Moses law, in this Man everyone who believes is justified : " Acts 13:38-39. In proof of this for giveness, the Apostles pointed exultingly to the empty grave of the Crucified ; and, in proof of the love which prompted it, to the shed blood of the Son of God. This is the Gospel of Pardon.
4. But more than pardon is needed. For the pardoned ones are still in the midst of temptation and conflict. The path to the throne is occupied by terrible foes. And the adopted sons of God are bidden, not only to fight their way through, but to rescue others. For all this, they are powerless.
Yet this command, and God s claim to our unreserved obedience and devotion, are imperative. In our powerlessness we see before us One, human flesh and blood like ourselves, who did to absolute perfection what God bids us do. He calls us to His side, and bids us walk in His steps. In view of His authority and example, we dare not hesitate. And the raging waters are solid rock beneath our feet. The secret is out. Every command of Christ is a promise in disguise. Our powerlessness apart from Him tells us that, what He bids us do, He will Himself, by His Spirit in our hearts, do in us.
Henceforth all is changed. We walk by His side along the path He trod, Him self our Guide and Companion. He who is with us is also within us, our Life, and Light, and Strength. While we walk with Him, and He in us, we rest in Him, as our Home, and impregnable Fortress, and our vital Atmosphere. And His presence with us now guiding our steps, and our rest in Him amid the weariness and conflict of the journey, are a sure pledge of the reality of that City Unseen towards which He is leading us and of the endless rest and fulness of joy awaiting us there. To proclaim to all who will hear us, as clearly and forcibly as we can, this Law and Gospel of Holiness, is the duty and privilege of all who have heard these glad tidings of salvation and life eternal.