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Daniel Steele
Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.
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Daniel Steele discusses the theory of successive partial sanctifications, highlighting the misconception of implying backslidings after every cleansing and the confusion between entire sanctification and being reclaimed from spiritual decline. He emphasizes that true inward purity is grasped by live, growing, and intensely earnest Christians, discouraging the preaching of Christian perfection to those who have retrograded or are indifferent to spiritual advancement.
Retrocession a Prerequisite of Sanctification
THE theory of successive partial sanctifications it up to light," but never reaching the extinction of depravity, seems to imply successive backslidings after every cleansing: When justified, every person is, in the relative or comparative sense, entirely justified. And whenever, at any subsequent point, after a season of retrocession, he comes fully up to his light and once more walks in unclouded communion he becomes again entirely sanctified, in this lower sense. Thus our author confounds entire sanctification with what has been called being reclaimed from spiritual decline. Any acquaintance with the law of spiritual progress shows that only live, growing, and intensely earnest Christians grasp the prize of inward purity. In fact, Wesley discourages preaching Christian perfection to those who have retrograded and are indifferent to spiritual advancement. This is his answer to the question, "In what manner should we preach sanctification?" "Scarce at all to those who are not pressing forward," or "to those who are always drawing rather than driving." The good sense of Wesley in this matter is in striking contrast with the crudity of our author, who would make "a season of retrocession" a preparation for entire sanctification "in the relative sense."
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Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.