had thus cleansed me had power to keep me clean; so I just utterly yielded myself to him, and utterly trusted him to keep me.' Scriptures: Psa. xxxvii, 15; Mal. iii, 10; John vii, 17; Jude 24; 2 Cor. iii, 5.

Rev. Wm. Bramwell: "I was for some time deeply convinced of my need of purity, and sought it carefully with tears and entreaties and sacrifices, thinking nothing too much for me to give up-nothing too much to do or suffer-if I might but obtain this pearl of great price." After describing the manner in which he sought heart cleansing-viz., "By faith alone, without the deeds of the law"-he says: "The Lord, for whom I waited, came suddenly to the temple of my heart, and I had an immediate evidence that this was the blessing I had for some time been seeking. It is now about twenty-six years ago. I have walked in this blessed liberty ever since. Glory be to God! I have been kept by his power. By faith I stand."

Rev. John Fletcher's experience: "I received this blessing four or five times before, but lost it by not obeying the order of God: With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.' But the enemy offered his bait in various colors to keep me from a public declaration of what my Lord had wrought." And, after narrating the manner of these deceptions, he says: "Now, brethren, you see my folly. I have confessed it in your presence, and now I resolve before you all to confess my Master. I will confess him to all the world; and I will declare unto you, in the presence of God, the Holy Trinity, I am now 'dead indeed unto sin.' I do not say I am crucified with Christ, because some of our well-meaning brethren say, 'By this can only be meant a gradual dying;' but I profess unto you, I am dead unto sin, and alive unto God. He is my Prophet, Priest, and King; my indwelling holiness; my all and in all."

Bishop Asbury: "I live in patience, in purity, and in the perfect love of God. God is my portion; he fills me with pure spiritual life. My heart is melted into holy love, and altogether devoted to my Lord. I think we ought modestly to tell what we feel to the fullest." Having once lost the blessing, he says: "Last night the Lord re-sanctified my soul. I am divinely impressed to preach sanctification in every sermon." Scriptures illustrated by this experience: Deut. vi, 5; Matt. v, 48; 1 John iv, 17, 18; Acts iv, 31; xiii, 52; 2 Cor. i, 20-22.

Wm. Carvosso: "Just at that moment a heavenly influence filled the room; and no sooner had I uttered or spoken the words from my heart, I shall have the blessing now,' than refining fire went through

my heart, illuminating my soul, scattered its life through every part, and sanctified the whole. I then received the full witness of the Spirit that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin. I cried out: This is what I wanted. I have now got a new heart!' I was emptied of self and sin, and filled with God."

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE QUOTED AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF HOLINESS.

Are there any passages of Scripture which contradict the doctrine of Christian holiness? Some people evidently think so, or they would not always be ringing the changes upon certain ones. Here are the texts they employ from the Old Testament: “ "There is no man that sinneth not;""For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not;" "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse;" "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (1 Kings viii, 46; Eccl. vii, 20; Job ix, 20; Prov. xx, 9.) These are supposed to be all the passages usually cited from the Old Testament to prove that Christian perfection is unattainable and an absurdity. But the question is whether these few passages are to be thus interpreted in the face of numerous other passages which plainly teach the contrary. The several writers can not contradict themselves, and must not be so interpreted as to contradict each other. Now, what do these passages mean? Are we to understand them as positively asserting that the doctrine of Christian holiness is untrue, unscriptural, and absurd? This question was once propounded to a distinguished Biblical scholar, known as not in sympathy with the "perfectionists" of his time. His reply was: "These passages bear no relation whatever to the doctrine of entire sanctification. All they can be made to affirm is this, All men are sinners; that is, every man, at some period of his life, does sin." A noted college president also took up the theme, and he said: "A moment's consideration will show that this is all that can be made out of these passages. The Hebrew has no regular tenses to express the past, present, and future time, with the precision of other languages. Hence, when the past or future tense-the only tenses found in that language is used, we have to determine by the context, and the object of the writer, whether past, present, or future time is really intended. Now, the past tense more naturally falls in with the manifest design of the writer in these passages, than the present. If they sin against thee, and there is

no man who has not sinned;' that is, we are all sinners in the sight of God. 'There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and has not sinned.' This is the thought which more naturally suggests itself, under the circumstances in which Solomon was when he uttered the sentiment contained especially in the first passage. 'If I should say, I am perfect, that would prove me perverse.' Job does not intend to say here: If I should say I have attained to the exercise of perfect love, that would prove me perverse; but if I should say that I have never sinned, and am in this sense perfect, so that God could not justly punish me. This is his meaning. No reason, then, exists why we should not believe that Job, as a saint, was not a 'perfect and upright man,' as God says he was, and according to the literal acceptation of these terms. So of others."

Adam Clarke was a clear-minded and just commentator, and the substance of his remarks upon certain of these passages is this: "If they sin against thee, and there is no man who may not sin; that is, is not liable to sin.' 'There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and may not sin.' Thus the Psalmist says, 'Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee,' the phrase, 'might not sin,' being the same as that rendered, 'sinneth not,' in the passages under consideration."

Any unprejudiced mind, examining these passages in the light of other Scripture teaching, must conclude that they have no bearing whatever upon the doctrine of perfect love. Any other view is directly and irreconcilably at war with the main body of Bible teaching, the chief design of the gospel, and the fundamental principle of the Christian Church. Paul has declared that 66 Christ loved the world and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word; that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without blemish." It is subverting Scripture to bring forward the passages we have named from the Old Testament, referring primarily to the unregenerated condition of the persons named, to contradict this plain and unequivocal statement of the apostle Paul. "But hold on!" says one; "I can point you to a passage of Paul's writings of precisely the same import. Read Rom. vii, 14-25." We have often done so, and find nothing absolutely contradictory to the bulk of Paul's unquestionable teachings upon this theme, and to the beautiful example of holiness which he set before the Church. In the above passage he is not describing Christian experience at all, far less the highest form of Christian experience to

which he has so plainly pointed all believers. He is simply describing the experience of the sinner, especially of the self-righteous Jew, who was following after righteousness, not by faith, but, as it were, by the deeds of the law. The passage has no more bearing upon the doctrine of holiness than it has upon the character of sinless angels. All reliable commentators are agreed in this.

"The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." In the passage cited from Romans, Paul speaks expressly of the carnal sinner: "I am carnal, sold under sin," etc. In the carnal state every man is a sinner, totally depraved, and Paul's description of such a man is accurate to the letter; but in the spiritual state no man ought to be a sinner. (Read carefully Rom. viii, 1-17.) It will always help us in arriving at the exact truth of Scripture teaching if we distinguish between the descriptions of the unredeemed sinner, or the characteristics of a legal experience, such as the Jew was conscious of, and such as Paul himself possessed when a Pharisee, and the description of one who has experienced the glorious liberty of the children of God, who, through faith in Christ-by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus-has been made free from the law of sin and death. Such discrimination always gives beautiful symmetry to the reasonings of the inspired writers, and keeps our own minds free from the fogs. In the light of this statement read 1 John i, 8, and then compare it carefully with 1 John i, 7, 9, and iii, 1-10. In i, 8, the apostle simply affirmed that if we say, as the self-righteous Jew did, we have no sin to be forgiven, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but in the other passages he teaches that if we acknowledge our guilt, and confess our sins, we may be cleared from the last of sin's remains. Thanks be unto God!

Part V.

WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER,

W

ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF PRAYER.

WHENCE man's idea of the efficacy of prayer? Is it a religious instinct, or is it the result of instruction? It might be difficult to prove absolutely that it is an original instinct; so it would be difficult to show that it is not. The idea seems to be universal, and as old as the race.

Probably no human being ever lived without prayer.

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed;

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast."

Prayer is desire, not the felt want of the "Prayer," says Rev.

The

Prayer is the urgency of poverty, and who is not poor? It is the outcry of helplessness, and who is not weak? words; it is earnestness, not eloquence; it is heart, not the expressed opinions of the head. Dr. A. Maclaren, "is nothing unless it be the outgoing of the soul to the thing prayed for, because we know it to be Christ's will. soul should rise on the pinions of a strong desire heavenward, and, as it rises, should gaze with a clear eye upon the certainty of the things for which it asks. These two characteristics-earnest longing and confident assurance- -are indispensable to any thing that is worth the name of prayer."

If a man believe in the existence of a personal God, he will pray unto him. No number of scientific difficulties, no amount of philosophical speculation as to the uselessness of prayer, will prevent the finite from calling upon the infinite, especially in seasons of distress and danger. It was the great Abraham Lincoln who said: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction.