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The Only Known Audio Recording of Brengle 1920
Samuel Logan Brengle

Samuel Logan Brengle (1860 - 1936). American Salvation Army officer, author, and holiness preacher born in Fredericksburg, Indiana. Converted at 13 in a Methodist revival, he graduated from DePauw University in 1885, intending to become a lawyer, but pursued ministry after studying at Boston Theological Seminary. Joining the Salvation Army in 1887 under William Booth, he trained in London and served in U.S. corps, rising to Commissioner by 1915. Brengle authored nine books, including Heart Talks on Holiness (1897) and Helps to Holiness, translated into 20 languages, emphasizing entire sanctification and Spirit-filled living. He preached across North America and Europe, leading thousands to faith through street meetings and revival campaigns. Married to Elizabeth Swift in 1887, they had three children. His gentle demeanor and focus on inner purity influenced the holiness movement globally. Brengle’s words, “Holiness is not the absence of temptation, but the presence of God’s power,” inspired countless believers. Despite health struggles, his writings and sermons, widely circulated, shaped Salvationist theology and evangelical spirituality.
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Sermon Summary
In this video, the late Commissioner Samuel Brangle shares his personal testimony of how he experienced sanctification and full salvation. He recounts how he encountered God in his own room and immediately shared the news with others. Encouraged by a friend, he began preaching about his experience and witnessed God's blessings in his own life and in the lives of others. Commissioner Brangle emphasizes that sanctification is a transformative experience that brings every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus and fills the heart with love for God and others.
Sermon Transcription
A little time ago, two recordings of the voice of the late Commissioner Samuel Brangle were discovered. These are the only known recordings of the Salvation Army's great Apostle of Holiness. We bring them to you in this form in order that they may continue to bring blessing and inspiration to all. We feel sure that the richness of meaning in the words he brings will more than compensate for the lack of quality in the ancient recordings on which his voice has been preserved. The singing is by the Danforth Songs to Brigade, directed by Eric Sharp, who is also the soloist. The next voice you will hear will be that of the late Commissioner Samuel Brangle. On January 9th, 1885, at about 9 o'clock in the morning, God sanctified my soul. I was in my own room at the time, but in a few minutes I went out and met a man and told him what God had done for me. The next morning I met another friend on the street and told him the blessed story. He shouted and praised God and urged me to preach full salvation and confess it everywhere. God used him to encourage and help me. So the following day I preached on the subject as clearly and forcefully as I could and ended with my testimony. God blessed the word mightily to others, but I think he blessed it most to myself. That confession put me on record. It cut the bridges down behind me. Three worlds were now looking at me as one who professed that God had given him a clean heart. I could not go back now. I had to go farther. God saw that I meant to be true to death. So two mornings after that, just as I got out of bed and was reading some of the words of Jesus, he gave me such a blessing as I never had dreamed a man could have this sight of heaven. It was a heaven of love that came into my heart. In that hour I knew Jesus and I loved him till it seemed my heart would break with love. I loved the sparrows. I loved the dogs. I loved the horses. I loved the little urchins on the street. I loved the strangers who hurried past me. I loved the heathen. I loved the whole world. You want to know what holiness is? It is pure love. You want to know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is? It is not a mere sentiment. It is not a happy sensation that passes away in a night. It is a baptism of love that brings every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus, that casts out all fear, that burns up doubt and unbelief as fire burns coal, that makes one meek and lowly in heart. A number of years ago, before many of the young people for whom this book is written were born, a girl asked me, what is this sanctification or holiness that people are talking so much about? She had heard the experience testified to and talked and preached about for nearly a year, until I thought that of course she understood it. Her question surprised and almost discouraged me, but I rallied and asked, have you a bad temper? Oh, yes, she said. I have a temper like a volcano. Sanctification, I replied, is to have that bad temper taken out. That definition set her thinking and did her good, but it was too narrow. If I had said sanctification is to have temper and all sin taken away and the heart filled with love to God and man, that would have done, for that is sanctification, that is holiness. It is in our measure to be made like God, it is to be made a partaker of the divine nature. A spark from the fire is like the fire. The tiniest trick on the giant oak or the smallest branch of the vine has the nature of the oak or the vine and is in that respect like the oak or the vine. A drop of water on the end of your finger from the ocean is like the ocean, not in its size, of course, nor the big ships cannot float upon it, nor the big fishes swim in it, but it is like the ocean in its essence, in its character, in its nature. Just so a holy person is like God. Not that he is infinite as God is. He does not know everything. He has not all power and wisdom as God has, but he is like God in his nature. He is good and pure and loving and just in the same way that God is. Holiness, then, is conformity to the nature of God. It is likeness to God as he is revealed in Jesus. But some of them cry out, impossible, we are poor sinful creatures.
The Only Known Audio Recording of Brengle 1920
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Samuel Logan Brengle (1860 - 1936). American Salvation Army officer, author, and holiness preacher born in Fredericksburg, Indiana. Converted at 13 in a Methodist revival, he graduated from DePauw University in 1885, intending to become a lawyer, but pursued ministry after studying at Boston Theological Seminary. Joining the Salvation Army in 1887 under William Booth, he trained in London and served in U.S. corps, rising to Commissioner by 1915. Brengle authored nine books, including Heart Talks on Holiness (1897) and Helps to Holiness, translated into 20 languages, emphasizing entire sanctification and Spirit-filled living. He preached across North America and Europe, leading thousands to faith through street meetings and revival campaigns. Married to Elizabeth Swift in 1887, they had three children. His gentle demeanor and focus on inner purity influenced the holiness movement globally. Brengle’s words, “Holiness is not the absence of temptation, but the presence of God’s power,” inspired countless believers. Despite health struggles, his writings and sermons, widely circulated, shaped Salvationist theology and evangelical spirituality.