1. We must remember that the Christian Church originally consisted of Jews only, gradually absorbing the Gentile element, which continued to increase till it not only predominated over the Jewish, but receiving a grand impetus after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the apostles into all nations, so that within a few centuries the Judaic element was so absorbed in the Gentile as forever to disappear, thus radically revolutionizing the Church and superinducing a complete transformation out of Judaism into cosmopolitanism.

ARGUMENT ELECTION 2. “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit.” In regeneration, we receive the nomination as candidates for heaven. As it here says, in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit we are elected into the heavenly inheritance. The Calvinistic churches, which are founded on the doctrine of election, ought to be redhot sanctificationists because their election only becomes valid in the sanctified experience, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit. If they are not sanctified, their election inevitably turns out Satanic and sends them to hell instead of to heaven. Hence this Scripture settles the conclusion that the whole system of the Calvinistic theology hinges on the sanctification of the Holy Ghost, or it inevitably capsizes, dumping them into hell; therefore all the Calvinistic churches would consistently make a life and death fight on the great and glorious experience of entire sanctification, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit. While we are nominated in conversion and elected in sanctification, we are crowned in glorification. If Mr. McKinley, though now elected President of the United States, should die before March 4th, he will never be inaugurated nor encumber the Presidential chair. Though sanctified people are already elected to the glories of heaven, they are still on probation, liable to fall, forfeit their election, die spiritually and lose their own souls. God help us to make our calling and election sure. “Unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Our faithful obedience and co-operation with God in this world and in the heavenly worlds through all eternity, constitute the ad ultimatum for which we are called into existence. Entire sanctification is absolutely necessary to eliminate all antagonism and render us perfectly free and obedient as angels, not only through life, but the flight of eternal ages. Some churches preach salvation by obedience. They ought to be uncompromising sanctificationists, because perfect and satisfactory obedience is utterly impossible till sanctification has removed all depravity, and thus swept away all the antagonisms to that complete and delightful obedience which alone can satisfy our Heavenly Father. This lost world can only be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Though that blood has been shed, it must come in contact with human souls in order to save them. God’s true people are all faithful sprinklers of the blood on the ruined millions of this fallen world. The Word is the great medium through which the blood is sprinkled on the people who hear it. The Gospel in sermon, exhortation, appeal, prayer, testimony and song, sprinkles the cleansing blood of Jesus on all receptive and appreciative hearers. This verse reveals the fact that the sanctification wrought by the Holy Spirit is the condition of our election, acceptable obedience and true efficiency in the sprinkling of the blood, by which the world is to be saved.

ARGUMENT SPIRITUAL ARITHMETIC “Grace and peace unto you be multiplied.” The Bible contains but one grand primal truth, i .e ., sin and its remedy. This great compound truth is elucidated by imagery infinitesimal, deduced from every conceivable ramification of the material world, and especially domestic life. Here we have mathematics tied in to elucidate the wonderful plan of salvation.

Regeneration is a wonderful addition, bringing life into the dead soul and adding the kingdom of God to a bankrupt spirit. Sanctification is subtraction taking the hereditary sin element out of the heart, leaving it in Edenic purity. Really there are only two fundamental rules in arithmetic, i .e . addition and subtraction, multiplication being a rapid form of addition and division an expeditious method of subtraction. Sin goes out of the heart to make room for grace. Then multiplication follows in the incoming floods of the Holy Ghost filling and inundating the entire spiritual being with unutterable floods of rhapsody and heavenly fruition, so we ere long find ourselves floating in an ocean without bottom or bank. Then division follows as a normal fruitage of multiplication. With thrilling enthusiasm we delight to impart the heavenly benefaction to all we meet, thus dividing indefinitely and unstintedly. Meanwhile the Omnipotent Giver incessantly supplies us faster than we can possibly dispense. A penniless orphan boy in France, feeling the innate predilection to seek happiness, observing the rich moving in pomp and pageantry, soliloquizes, “I will get rich, and then I know I will be happy.” He works hard, becomes a business expert, a shrewd speculator, runs day and night, eventually gets vast money-making enterprises on foot, and as the years roll on, accumulates a princely fortune. In his enthusiasm he neglects matrimony and finds himself a bachelor of sixty years, prematurely old, worn out with toil and racked with rheumatism because of exposure. He is now a millionaire, his finances dispersed in merchandise, real estate, railroads and bank stocks. Again he soliloquizes, “Is life destined to be a failure? I thought when I accumulated all the wealth heart can wish, I would certainly be a happy man; but, alas! the happiness of my boyhood when I toiled all day for my victuals and clothes, and slept soundly on a rick of straw at night, has fled and left me a miserable old man, tortured with rheumatic pains and burdened with innumerable cares and responsibilities. I will make one more effort; selling out all my vast estates for gold, I will put it in a bag and keep it hid in my house, then I certainly can take my rest and enjoy the world and be happy, for the gold will bring me everything heart can wish.” He proceeds at once, turns all of his estates into glittering gold, brings it home, sits down in his easy chair, perfectly free from every care and says, “Now I will be happy.” Oh, how he has mistaken! He thinks every man he sees is a robber, coming to kill him and take his gold. Sleep takes its flight. In the dismal dreams of exhausted nature, he sees daggers gleaming in the moonlight, and is affrighted by the reports of fire-arms. Again he soliloquizes, “Alas for me! Would that I had never been born! Life is no longer bearable. There is nothing left but suicide.” He goes down to the beautiful river Seine to plunge beneath the rolling billow and put an end to a life intolerably wretched. Standing on the bank contemplating the fatal leap, putting his hand in his pocket, he lights on a few coins. Now he soliloquizes, “It would not be right to plunge in with this money and waste it, But what shall he do with it? For the first time in his life he thinks about giving something to the poor. Espying a squalid hovel in a rocky ravine, he goes to the door and overhears a voice within, “please God, do send on the good man I saw last night in my dream. Come and give me some money to buy bread for my starving children, for here my husband lies dying on this bed, and my children are starving. Oh, send on the good man.” Responsive to his rap, the door swings open. Meanwhile he holds out the money to the woman, who praises God for the answer to her prayer, certifying that he is the very man she saw in her dream. The little children kiss the hand that ministers to their wants, while the sick man calls the benefactor to his bed to receive his dying blessing. Down on their knees the woman and children fall to pray God’s blessing on their benefactor. The sick man joins them at the throne of grace. The old iron heart of the miser begins to heave and bound like a volcano with the first spiritual emotions he ever felt in all his life. There and then he is powerfully converted to God, forgets all about suicide, hastens to his bag of gold, gets an ample supply to relieve the pauper, mounts the thoroughfares, goes on missions of mercy to the ends of the earth, preaching Jesus and relieving all in distress. Wherever poverty frowns and misery lingers, into lonely prisons and dark hovels, there he goes, carrying the sunshine of both worlds, till he gives away the vast fortune he had accumulated. Then the angels come for him and take him to heaven. We narrate this incident to illustrate the wonders of spiritual multiplication and division. The accumulation of this fortune was the necessary antecedent to its disbursement among the suffering poor. In spiritual mathematics we first receive the addition of a new heart, then the sanctification of a clean heart, which is followed by multiplication in the wonderful incoming floods of the Holy Ghost. This is the transcendent qualification for a life truly efficient in soul saving. Well did Jesus say, “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” There is not a literary school in America that would tolerate a teacher incompetent to lead the pupils beyond addition. Yet the great majority of the churches (the schools of Christ) are taught by preachers who have never even reached subtraction, to say nothing of multiplication and division. No wonder their members starve to death, because division which can only follow multiplication, is the dispensation of soul food.

Good Lord, how long shall this spiritual famine prevail in the churches?

ARGUMENT FULL SALVATION AND THE SECOND COMING 3... “Having begotten us into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Remember once for all, throughout the New Testament “begotten” and “born” are precisely synonymous, both being translations of gennaoo . From this fact the logical sequence follows that the natural analogy in this case does not obtain in the spiritual kingdom, but the very moment the Holy Ghost begets a soul, that soul is born of God. This undeniable fact, revealed in the inspired Greek, sweeps from the field some very foolish theology which I have heard proclaimed from the pulpit, i .e ., “begotten by the Word and born of the water.” “The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” was a sunburst, reviving and gloriously vitalizing the waning hope of Israel, verifying all the Messianic prophecies, which had held the nations spellbound four thousand weary years, and flooding the world with the “living hope” of universal salvation. 4. “Having been reserved in the heavens for you.” Ouranois , “heavens,” is here, as uniformly in the New Testament, in the plural number, corroborating the astronomical revelation of innumerable worlds, constituting the celestial universe, the enormous number of one billion and one hundred and seventy millions of worlds already reached by the telescope, which, we have ample reasons to believe, constitute but a fraction of God’s boundless dominions. How glorious it will be in coming eternity to wing our flight from world to world, exploring the illimitable glories of Omnipotence. 5... “Unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last dispensation.” This is final salvation consummated in the transfiguration of the body when our Lord descends to “steal” away his Bride. It constituted the climax of Christian hope in the Apostolic age, waning with the apostasy of the Church and finally, with the other great spiritual truths, sinking into total eclipse. God used Luther and his compeers to restore the long lost experience of justification by faith independently of priestly manipulation; Wesley and his comrades to restore the glorious experience of entire sanctification, instantaneously received by faith. It is the glory of the present holiness movement to restore divine healing, woman’s ministry, the Lord’s coming, and the transfiguration of the Bride. Salvation in this final, complete and triumphant sense was the constant and flowing inspiration of the Apostolical saints. It is much to be regretted that this most potent of all incentives to a holy experience in life was ever forfeited by the Church. The restoration of the Apostolic hope of the glorious privileges of the transfigured bridehood is becoming the most transcendent stimulant to entire sanctification, holy living and heroic achievement in the conquest of the world for Christ. 6. Here we have indirect allusion to the bloody persecutions everywhere developing which very soon after this writing nailed Peter to the cross, decapitated Paul and opened the bloody Coliseum to fatten the lions on the saints of God. 7. Here God tells us that the true heroic faith which will not flicker amid persecutions is more valuable than gold. If the people only believed it, what a wonderful revolution would supervene “in the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This means the revilement of the glorified personal Christ, who now encumbers the Mediatorial throne, back to this world, where He wilt again be visible to human eyes, and His voice again audible on the earth.

We now live amid a grand culmination of prophecies assuring us that the time is at hand when our glorious Lord shall again appear. What an inspiration to us all to be under the blood robed and ready and on the constant outlook. 8... “Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” God’s salvation is the same in all ages. Here we see how the saints in the Apostolic age were literally transported with delight in contemplation of the Lord’s glorious descension to this world, which is a confirmatory proof that they were fully sanctified and filled with the Spirit as none others will be competent to meet Him with a shout, thus vividly illustrating the true Bible standard of Christianity in all ages, i .e ., emptied of sin and filled with the Holy Ghost. 9. “Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” How wonderfully simple is Apostolic preaching. Here you see that all salvation is by faith. If you are not fully, completely and triumphantly saved with the clear attestation of the Holy Spirit, rest assured faith is still deficient.

The Holy Spirit is with you to give you all you need, forever ejecting all doubt, enabling you to believe with a perfect faith, and thus appropriate entire sanctification. 10. The wonderful Pentecostal experience of the complete soul victory in the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, constituting the normal standard and the crowning glory of the Gospel dispensation, moved in gorgeous panoramic visions before the inspired gaze of the old prophets, thrilling them with enthusiasm and inundating them with utter bewilderment. 11. “Searching into what, or what kind of a dispensation the Spirit of Christ, who was in them, witnessing the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories, did reveal.” John Wesley says this is the glory of holiness, which was destined to supervene after the suffering of Christ, the wonderful plan of salvation having been thoroughly perfected forever, verifying and satisfying the violated law, lifting forever the dark veil of condemnation from a sinking world, and irradiating all the dismal hell dens of earth with the transcendent possibility of an uttermost salvation, and the population of heaven with the teeming millions of a sin debauched earth. No wonder these prophetic visions astounded and thrilled the prophets of a moonlit dispensation. 12... “Which are now proclaimed unto you by those who preach the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost, who has been sent down from heaven.” The personal Holy Ghost, the predicted successor of the ascended Christ, came down on the day of Pentecost and filled the disciples, thus inaugurating the full orbed Gospel dispensation. The antediluvian world had skylight, the patriarchal age starlight, and the Mosaic Church moonlight. Day dawned with John the Baptist, the sun rose when Jesus was born, and the glorious noonday culminated at Pentecost, never to wane, but to brighten into the perennial glory of God’s millennial day. It was not the Divine plan that the Church should ever be dragged back into the moonshine dispensation by unsanctified Gospel preachers. Hence He positively forbade His own apostles to go preaching till after the reception of the Pentecostal baptism.

Peter and all the disciples had received the personal in-dwelling Holy Ghost sanctifying them to preach the everlasting Gospel of full salvation to all nations. Oh, the blessedness of those who “preach the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” and transcendent felicity of those who hear! “Into which things the angels desire, bending over to look.” Here Peter has a vision, including earth and heaven, in which he sees the blood-washed and fire-baptized sons and daughters of Zion standing amid the slums and jungles of sin and misery “preaching the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” Meanwhile he sees the angels in heaven strolling around over the golden pavements, bending over the celestial battlements with seraphic eyes looking down upon the scene enraptured with the sight of God’s humble children filled with the Holy Ghost, preaching the everlasting Gospel to a dying world.

ARGUMENT MORTALITY AND SPIRITUALITY 13. “Therefore having girded up the loins of your mind, being perfectly sober, hope unto the grace which is to be conferred upon you in the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Man is a trinity similitudinous to God. He has body, mind and spirit. The great bulk of theologians, since the Constantinian apostasy, have been dichotomists, i .e ., dualists treating man as consisting of two natures instead of three, confounding mind and spirit.

As the result of this heresy, mentalities are everywhere preached as a substitute for spiritualities. John Wesley was a staunch trichotomist, in harmony with Paul, Peter and other inspired writers. He fought the dichotomists all his life, little anticipating that within one hundred years the great majority of his Gospel sons would preach dichotomy. In ordinary parlance, soul, heart and spirit are synonymous, meaning the man himself in contradistinction to the mind and body, his servitors. When God said to Adam, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” He meant just what He said. He did not tell him his mind should die (in which case he would become idiotic), nor that his body should die (in which case he would become a corpse). Adam the immortal spirit did die, i .e ., forfeit the life of God, and so remains till that life is restored in regeneration.

Hence you see that total depravity (which means entirely deprived of spiritual life) only appertains to the spirit of Adam and not to his mind nor his body. Consequently great systems of religion prevail in the earth, consisting of materiality and mentality, utterly destitute of spirituality and equally devoid of salvation, for when you leave out the human spirit you eliminate the man, retrogressing toward brutality. The human spirit is constituted of the conscience, the will and the affections. The conscience was the only survivor of the fall, the voice of God still lingering in the soul of the vilest reprobate, true and faithful, taking God’s side against the sinner. The will, the king of the man, is on the devil’s side till turned over to God in conversion, after which it ever remains true to God, unless unfortunately turned back to the devil in apostasy. After conversion, hereditary evil still survives in the deep regions of the affections, until utterly extirpated in the glorious subsequent work of entire sanctification.

The mind consists of the intellect, the judgment, the memory and the sensibilities. The popular gospel is mainly mentality, which is simply no gospel at all. Popular religion consists of morality, philanthropy, mentality and churchianity, all of which are utterly destitute of salvation, leaving the poor devotee to drop into hell. The true religion, while including all these things, is pure spirituality, begun, perpetuated and perfected in the heart by the Holy Ghost, bringing in the new life in regeneration, eliminating carnality in sanctification, then filling and flooding the soul. “Perfectly sober.” In this valuable passage, unfortunately the adverb “perfectly” is omitted in the English. Sin is the only thing that ever made the human soul drunk. When your soul receives entire sanctification, expurgating all original sin, then it is made “perfectly sober.” “Hope unto the grace which is to be conferred on you in the revelation of Jesus Christ.” In this verse we are commanded first to “gird up the loins of our minds” i .e ., to use all the sense that God has given us to the best possible advantage. Then we are to reach perfect spiritual sobriety, which is none other than complete sanctification. Now, we have reached the attitude of preparation and expectancy of our Lord’s coming in His glorious kingdom. Then follows the positive commandment, “Hope unto the grace which is contained in the revelation of Jesus Christ.” What is that grace which is to be conferred on the true saints when our Lord is revealed in His glory? It is none other than our glorified transfiguration. The New Testament repeatedly certifies that the Gentile age in which we live is the last predecessor of the glorious millennial kingdom, while the prophecies certainly settle the conclusion that we are living in the time of the end when our Lord’s coming is very nigh. Pursuant to the prophecies we are on the constant outlook for the rapture in which the glorified Jesus will transfigure the members of His bridehood, taking them up while the great tribulation sweeps over all nations. As none but the wholly sanctified will constitute the bridehood, the greatest conceivable incentives constantly inspire the true Christian to keep under the blood, robed and ready for the transcendent grace of this glorious transfiguration when the Lord shall ride down on the cloud.

ARGUMENT SANCTIFICATION AND DEPRAVITY 14. “As children of obedience.” This phrase is a Hebraism, and means the highest order of obedience to God. “Not being fashioned after your former lusts in ignorance.” This recognizes the complete and radical revolution of the entire practical life, which can only result from a total internal transformation of spirit and mind. 15. “But according to the Holy One, who calleth you, be ye also holy in all your deportment.” “Anastrophee ” (conversation) is a very strong word, meaning not only the conversation but the entire practical life, deportment and even the moral and spiritual character. Hence this commandment is a hundred per cent. stronger in the Greek than in the English. 16. “Therefore it has been written, Ye shall be holy because I am holy.” The Greek here has the imperative “shall,” identifying it with the Ten Commandments, and thus giving it all the force of the Decalogue. No created intelligent man or angel can ever go back on God’s “shall.” Hence you see that holiness is the one indispensable, inevasible sine qua non of the heavenly administration, which the combined ingenuity of theology, popery, prelacy and priestcraft can never contravene. 17. This verse certifies the utter impartiality of that infallible Judge who will accept nothing but spiritual purity when we stand before the great white throne. Hence the combined incentives of earth, heaven, hell, life, death, judgment and eternity all conspire to flood the heart, soul, mind and body with an irrepressible and indefatigable enthusiasm to utilize each fleeting moment of this fugitive probation, focalizing all the powers of triune humanity, co-operated by the omnipotent grace of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and inspired by the heroic example of two hundred millions of sainted martyrs to secure and appropriate entire holiness of heart and life at every conceivable cost, fearlessly of men and devils. 18, 19. “Knowing that you have not been redeemed from your depraved character transmitted to you from your fathers, by corruptible things, silver or gold, but by the precious blood of Christ as a lamb, blameless and spotless.” In 1611, when the English Bible was translated, conversation, from the Latin conversatio , meant not only our words, but moral character, deportment and living. In the last two hundred years that word has been spoliated of about nine-tenths of its original meaning. Consequently it is no longer an adequate translation of the original. This is really an unanswerable revelation of total hereditary depravity, transmitted from Satan, through Adam the first, to every fallen son and daughter. The value of this and other parallel Scriptures can not be overestimated as impassable break-waters against the fearful tide of slipshod theology, superficial professions and sham religions, which this day flood Christendom. The great Bible doctrines of hereditary depravity and entire sanctification, like Siamese twins, live or die together. All we mean by total depravity is the uniform Bible recognition of the sinner as spiritually dead. A dead man is entirely deprived of life. Hence total depravity does not mean debauchery, sensuality or criminality, but simply destitution of spiritual life. The great salient fact of redemption focalizes in total depravity. Whenever you ignore the utter ruin of humanity by the fall and the perfect redemption of Christ, you are adrift, compassless and chartless, on the boundless ocean of skepticism. 20. “Known truly before the foundation of the world.” This statement settles forever the absolute and unconditional foreknowledge of God. He foresaw the fall of humanity and provided the remedy before the creation.

This fact can not be construed to antagonize most perfect human freedom, as knowledge is not influence, and really determines nothing. “But being made manifest at the last of the times.” God in His inscrutable wisdom is preparing the world for the glorious coming kingdom by a series of consecutive ages, i .e ., the Edenic, the antediluvian, the patriarchal, the Judaic and the Gentile, which began with the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 587, and repeatedly by Christ and the Apostles certified to be the last dispensation. As all the lights of prophecy converge to reveal the momentous fact that we are rapidly approaching the end of this age, when the Lord will ride down on the throne of His glory, the grandest conceivable conspiracy of incentives inspire us to a holy experience and life. 21. God’s resurrection and glorification of Christ forever swept from the field all possible cavil and controversy as to His Christhood, flooring infidelity with-out the possibility of recuperation, and rendering it a laughing stock for men, angels and devils. “So your faith and hope are toward God.” The transcendent victory of Christ over death, hell, the grave, mortality, carnality and Satan, disencumbers faith of every doubt and sweeps every cloud from hope’s azure sky. With the unsanctified, faith and hope are largely selfward, worldward, moneyward and churchward. The baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire exterminates all these carnal elements, so that faith and hope bound away on untiring wing, enjoying a glorious and perpetual balloon ride with God alone.

ARGUMENT REGENERATION AND SANCTIFICATION 22, 23. “Having purified your souls in obedience the truth unto brotherly love free from hypocrisy, love one another with divine love fervently out of the heart, having been born again not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the Word of God, who liveth and abideth.” Peter is a powerful exponent of the great double salvation which inundates the Bible from the alpha of Genesis to the omega of Revelation. In this isolated sentence, comprising two verses, he clearly, specifically, and unequivocally sets forth in their connection the two works of grace, i .e ., regeneration and sanctification. The Word of God is here symbolized by the seed sown in the field, germinating and producing the abundant harvest.

As none but God can make the seed sprout, so the Holy Spirit is the only Agent in regeneration. We preach the Word, which is the seed of the kingdom, and the Holy Spirit develops out of it divine life, thus raising the dead human soul into spiritual vitality. “Having purified your souls.” This is spoken of the regenerate who are now obedient to the truth revealed in God’s Word, and is a beautiful description of the modus operandi by which we are sanctified “through the truth,” pursuant to our Savior’s valedictory prayer, John 17. The Bible is a wonderful book, delectably beautiful in variety. In the plan of salvation, there is a perfect co-operation of the human and divine agency. In this passage the human is brought to the front and conspicuously emphasized. “Unto brotherly love free from hypocrisy.” Nothing but entire sanctification can fully and finally expurgate the heart from every tincture of hypocrisy, which is one of the most subtle emissaries of Satan, lurking clandestinely in the deep subterranean jungles of the fallen soul. “Love one another fervently out of the heart with divine love.” In the Greek Scriptures agapee , which never occurs in heathen literature, means divine love, i .e ., the divine nature, for “God is love,” while philia always means “human love,” being the word used by the heathen Greek writers. Unfortunately, the English Scripture has obscured this great and valuable truth by translating agapee and philia simply by the same word, “love.” Myriads have been swept into the popular churches on a profession of love to God and the brethren, when it was nothing but human love, utterly destitute of salvation, as all wicked people have it, and even Dives in hell loved his brethren, so that he wanted to send them a missionary to save their souls. The divine agapee is never in a human heart till imparted by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. Romans 5:5. 24. In this verse we are exhorted, from the evanescence of the flower which blooms today and fades tomorrow, to remember the transiency of probationary opportunities, to be constantly on our watch towers looking out for the enemy, with our eye on Jesus, ready to go at His bidding and come at His beck, ever mindful that these fugitive days and years constitute our only opportunities to be regenerated into the kingdom of grace and sanctified for the realms of glory. 25. While this world with its emoluments and aggrandizements is fleeting as the falling leaf and fading flower, Peter reminds us that the Word of the Lord, the glorious Gospel, which it is our heaven-born privilege to proclaim to a dying world, will abide forever, judging us and all mankind when we stand before the flaming tribunal. (CHAPTER) - ARGUMENT REGENERATION, SANCTIFICATION AND GROWTH IN GRACE 1. “Therefore having laid aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisies, jealousies, and all calumniations.” This dark catalogue constitutes the motley cohort of inbred sin, here revealed as surviving in the hearts of the regenerate, keeping up an annoying civil war till expurgated in entire sanctification, here indicated by apothemenoi , “laying aside.” This participle pursuant to the constant usage of New Testament writers, denotative of God’s work in full sanctification, is in aorist tense, which always denotes an instantaneous action, forever annihilating the gradualistic theology of sanctification out of the Bible. All gradualism in both works of grace is human, simply involving our approach to God, till we come in contact with them, when He always does His work instantaneously. The gradualistic theology of sanctification is all man’s work without God, and therefore utterly spurious throughout. Dr. Clarke well says, “Gradual sanctification, like seriatim pardon, is to be discarded as a Romish heresy.” 2. “As newly born babes desire the pure milk of the Word in order that you may grow thereby into salvation.” The order of the Holy Ghost in this passage is beautiful, edifying and inspiring. Regenerated people, having unhesitatingly pressed forward into entire sanctification instantaneously received, are importunately commanded to appreciate and utilize the pure Word of God, in order that they may grow in grace, till they reach final salvation, which is the glorification of the soul and the body. In this invaluable argument a most important clause “eis sooteerion ,” into salvation, does not appear in the English. It is the keynote in the heavenly music which rings through this beautiful paragraph, constituting the climax of Peter’s clear head and powerful exegesis of the gracious economy. In the days of Martin Luther if a man claimed to know that he was converted, it was thought he ought to be hung for blasphemy. In the time of Wesley, a profession of sanctification was anathematized by the clergy as preposterous impudence. Nowadays many of the holiness people look with suspicion upon the experiences of grace subsequent to sanctification, as conducive to fanaticism. You see Peter sweeps all embargoes from the field, opening up the Gospel stadium illimitable and infinitesimal to the enthusiastic adventurer. He would first have you gloriously regenerated by the Holy Ghost. Then in your newly-born babyhood press forward into the experience of instantaneous and entire sanctification. Then you become homo unius libri — a man of one book. Secular papers, novels and trashy literature are thrown away, the Bible and holiness books alone encumbering your center table. Oh, how you voraciously devour and fatten on the blessed Word of God! The grand enthusiasm of this triumphant, spiritual progress is that you actually grow into gianthood and ripen into that glorious spiritual maturity, which culminates in transfiguration, held up so conspicuously by the inspired writers as “salvation,” in its ultimate and transcendental sense. 3. “If you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Just as the body has the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, so the human spirit is invested with the same. Though a dead man has all these organs, he is utterly destitute of sensation, till quickened unto life by the Holy Ghost.

Still his spiritual sensation is more or less obtuse till entire sanctification expunges all hereditary ailments and disabilities, rendering his spiritual susceptibilities and sensations intensely acute and supernaturally delightful.

ARGUMENT THE SPIRITUAL OFFICE 4. All sinners are the devil’s dead rocks, while Christians are God’s living stones. The Church of God, the divine ecclesia , not human ecclesiasticism, is here symbolized as a beautiful and majestic stone edifice, the apostles and prophets constituting the foundation, while Jesus Christ is the head of the corner The two pairs of parallel walls, i .e ., Jew and Gentile constituting the grand quadrangular superstructure, are consolidated in the corners by the Chief cornerstone, secure against all the storms dashing against it by the caprice of men and the rage of devils. 5. “And you as living stones are built up a spiritual house.” You see how every saved soul becomes a constituent stone in that grand and majestic superstructure, destined forever to stand towering among the angels, the delight of cherubim and seraphim, and the admiration of the universe.

Pursuant to this beautiful and instructive imagery, all truly sanctified people, in the capacity of efficient soul savers, are stone-masons. We go out into the devil’s mountains with an ample supply of God’s dynamite.

We drill down into Satan’s profound strata, deposit the dynamite, apply the celestial electricity and witness smashings, explosions, blowing up and disintegrating the devil’s rock. This is the Sinai Gospel of a true spiritual conviction. Then every fellow lights on his own rock with his chisel, transforming it into the shape requisite for its place in the glorious edifice, beautifying it with the gorgeous luster of celestial splendor, transporting it on the salvation wagon to the building site and depositing it in its proper place in the gorgeous superstructure. All this is the Calvary Gospel of regeneration. Now the stones gathered from Satan’s mountain ranges, girdling the globe, have all reached their predestinated places in the glorified Church of the First John, there to abide, unjostled, despite earthquakes and volcanoes, in perfect and imperturbable rest through all eternity. This is the Pentecostal Gospel of entire sanctification, the soul’s sweet, unutterable and eternal repose.

ARGUMENT PRIESTHOOD AND HIGH PRIESTHOOD 5...”Into a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the Gospel dispensation the Levitical priesthood has been transferred to the membership. Therefore regeneration makes you a priest, giving you license to preach while sanctification makes you a high priest, the former putting you in the sanctuary to worship and officiate, while the latter escorts you into the sanctum sanctorum and permits you to stand amid the splendors of the glorious shekinah , in the effulgent light of the divine presence, with access to the sweet manna in the golden pot ever fresh and delicious, and the luscious fruits constantly ripening on Aaron’s budding rod, while the heavenly cherubim with celestial pinions regale your face with the breezes of glory. Ecclesiastical tyrants are everywhere threatening God’s holy people with clerical ostracism and decapitation. Stop all your whining. If they want your license, let them have it. You will then be in as good fix as Paul and Peter.

Wake up to the glorious fact that regeneration makes you a priest, i .e . a preacher, and sanctification, a high priest, i .e ., bishop. God is now raising up an army of lay preachers, male and female, with license from heavenly headquarters to preach the everlasting Gospel to the dying millions of a lost world and bring on the millennium. 6... “Let him that believeth on Him not be ashamed.” Shame is the inseparable concomitant of sin. A genuine case of salvation takes away all shame and makes you courageous as a lion. You see from this Scripture that shame is incompatible with true faith. What is to become of the popular churches where ninety out of every hundred evince the sad fact that they are ashamed of Jesus, because they will not publicly testify to his power to save. 8... “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” In all ages the people have stumbled over the Christhood. The whole Bible is the biography of Christ. The Old Testament of the excarnate and the New of the incarnate, is God in Christ redeeming the world. The Holy Ghost is the disembodied Spirit of Christ. Satan fought the divine Fatherhood four thousand years, breaking down in signal defeat, polytheism collapsing and monotheism triumphant. Upon the Incarnation lie turned all the battering rams of earth and hell against the divine Sonship, even dividing the Church between Arians and Trinitarians, waging a desolating war through the centuries, again suffering signal defeat, the Christhood of Jesus coming to the front in universal recognition. We are living in the time of the devil’s last war against the Christhood. Now all the batteries of the pandemonium are turned against the Spirit of Christ, i .e ., the Holy Ghost, His personal successor. We have no war against the holiness movement; it is all against the personal Holy Ghost. The fallen churches, like the wicked world, are everywhere stumbling over the glorious Christhood in the person of the Holy Ghost. “They stumble over the word disbelieving, for which they were also appointed.” This sounds quite Calvinistic. We have no creed but the Bible, since God has gloriously saved us from everything but Himself. God made room in heaven for all the people in this world. He is doing His best to keep them all out of hell, and take them to heaven. Under His protest and through his dying love they rush into hell by millions because they love sin, which is the way to hell and brings hell into them, and congenializing them to live in hell forever. God sits upon the throne of the universe sees the way of every human being pursuant to his own will, and recognizes his destination in heaven or hell. 9. “You are an elect race.” We are nominated for heaven in conversion and elected in sanctification, and crowned in glorification. “Royal priesthood.” The high priest was always recognized as a member of the royal family.

While conversion makes you a priest, sanctification makes you a high priest. “Holy nation.” This world has many nationalities, designated by races and colors, and separated by oceans and seas. Among them God has a nationality distinctly marked, dispersed in all lands, peculiar and recognizable in every clime. Isaiah 62 says they shall be called a “holy people.” It is a significant fact that the people who believe in entire sanctification by a second work of grace are alone called “holy” among all the nations on the earth at the present day. The world is very apt to call things what they are. So you had better get where the world will call you “holy.” If you are not holy in the end, you would better never have been born. “A people unto conquest.” God’s holy people, though few, poor, and persecuted, like Joseph in Pharaoh’s dungeon, who came forth to rule over all the land, are destined to conquer the world for Christ, and come to the front to stay and rule the world forever in the glorious coming kingdom. “In order that you may proclaim the power of Him who calleth you out of darkness into His glorious light.” Satan’s counterfeit Christians are a dumb herd. God’s true people have always been very noisy, and doubtless will be more so after they get to heaven. They have always been a great annoyance to Satan’s dumb dead churches. 10. This verse alludes to the glorious call of the Gentiles to full Gospel rights and privileges, which God honored Peter to inaugurate at the house of Cornelius.

ARGUMENT CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE Abraham, the father of the faithful, though God had enriched him with silver and gold, herds and flocks, refused to build himself a house lest it might alienate his heart from his home in heaven, journeying to which he was a pilgrim and a stranger among the nations of the earth. I visited the old site on the plains of Mamre, where he pitched his tent ever and anon, and where Jehovah and two angels honored him with a visit, announcing the conception of Isaac, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra. 11. “Whether do you know that those who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Galatians 3:7. Hence you see all the true people of God are the children and successors of faithful Abraham. Therefore as we are all pilgrims and strangers in this God-dishonoring and Godforgetting world, traveling to a home beyond the stars, we can not afford to be encumbered with real estate. 12. “Having your deportment beautiful among the heathen, in order that whatsoever they calumniate you as evil doers, seeing from your beautiful works they may glorify God in the day of visitation.” The flower of truly saintly example is omnipotent, utilized by the Holy Ghost. About forty years ago a very learned, honest and deeply pious Hindu priest fortuitously encountered a New Testament. Reading and studying it with alacrity and enthusiasm, he becomes literally enamored with the beautiful characters of Jesus Christ and His disciples. Learning from the record that the former had ascended up to heaven, he gave up all aspiration to cultivate His acquaintance. At the same time conceiving the idea that His disciples still survived on the earth, he gave way to a consuming avidity to cultivate their acquaintance, and learn more about that wonderful religion. Amid his daily inquiries in the city of Bombay, India, falling in with an Englishman, he says, “Have you ever seen any of the disciples of Jesus Christ?” “Oh, yes, I know a goodly number of them in this city.” “Will you be so kind as to introduce me to them?” “With the greatest pleasure.” Now he escorts the priest around and introduces him to a number of English merchants in the city, who claimed to be the disciples of Jesus Christ. With the utmost delight he congratulates them, fully expecting to see the holy virtues of Peter, Paul and Mary exemplified. To his unutterable surprise, chagrin and disappointment, as he observes their daily deportment, he finds them, if possible, bigger rascals than the heathens. Therefore, giving up in utter despair, acquiescing in the conclusion that if Jesus Christ ever had any disciples on the earth they were all dead and gone, and as He was gone His religion was now like many of the Hindu gods, utterly and hopelessly inaccessible to mortals. Therefore, he goes back to his Hindu religion with greater devotion and assiduity than ever, believing it to be the best he could get. Meanwhile Bishop Taylor arrives in that country and spends four years preaching the Gospel, God signally blessing his labors among the English and Europeans, enabling him to organize the South India Conference. Fortunately this priest attends Taylor’s revivals, witnessing the mighty works of God. Among others crowding the altar he recognized those same English merchants in whom he had been so sadly disappointed.

He now soliloquizes: “I’ll see what becomes of these fellows; I’ll give them another chance.” Behold, they fall down at the mourners’ bench, weep bitterly, and after awhile they rise with radiant faces and testify that they have found Jesus Christ. The Hindu soliloquizes, “Perhaps they were mistaken before, so I will watch them again.” This time they fully verify his expectations, exemplifying the beautiful characters described in the New Testament, at the same time turning a flood of Christian kindness, fervent prayers and instructions on him. Then all of his quibbles ceased.

He sought and found Jesus Christ, “the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely,” and became a powerful preacher of the Gospel.

ARGUMENT LOYALTY TO HUMAN AUTHORITY FOR THE LORD’S SAKE 13-15. Though Paul and Peter both lived and died under the reign of Nero, the merciless Roman tyrant, they both enjoin submissive loyalty to human authority, both suffering martyrdom under the cruel edict of the brutal autocrat, for the Lord’s sake, while they and the one hundred millions whom the emperors slaughtered during the ensuing three hundred years might all have saved their lives by compromising their religion; hence the legitimate sequence from all these Scriptures relative to Christian loyalty to human authority, is the simple fact that we are to be loyal and obedient when compatible with duty and responsibility to God, otherwise nonresistingly to obey God rather than man, suffering persecution even to bloody martyrdom. 16. “As free and not having liberty as a cover of evil, but as the slaves of God.” We see from this verse that the perfect love slavery of entire sanctification is beautifully harmonious and co-existent with the very highest spiritual liberty. Really, they are synonymous, as perfect submission to God makes us participants of God’s own liberty, which is perfect freedom to do everything good and nothing bad. The Greek in this passage is douloi , “slaves,” and not oiketees , which always means a hired servant. Sinners are the devil’s slaves, unsanctified Christians, hired servants in the kingdom, e .g ., salaried preachers, while sanctified people are God’s love slaves, serving him with all the power of soul, mind and body, for no remuneration this side of heaven but pure love alone, at the same time enjoying perfect spiritual liberty, utter freedom from every care. 17... “Love the brotherhood with divine love.” This is not human love which is full of carnality, selfishness and lust, but the holy agapee , poured out into the heart by the Holy Ghost. Romans 5:5. 18. The world was full of human slavery in the Apostolic age. While the Christian religion enjoins submission on the part of slaves, thus conserving peace and harmony, it enjoins upon both master and servant the divine agapee , whose normal effect is to revolutionize human society and forever abolish slavery. 19. “For this is grace, if for the sake of the conscience of God, any one endure sorrows suffering unjustly.” Human conscience, though the highest moral tribunal, and pertinent to be followed under all circumstances simply as the best alternative, nevertheless is not a correct guide unless transformed by the Holy Ghost, rendering it the “conscience of God,” and no longer that of fallen humanity. 20. While punishment corrective of evil conduct is a blessing, when it is received innocently for Christ’s sake alone , it is a transcendent means of grace. No wonder the crown of martyrdom during the persecutionary ages became a universal desideratum among the saints of God. 21. We have flippant singing about walking in the footprints of Jesus.

Certainly this is the only way to heaven. We must walk in His footprints up rugged Calvary and be nailed to the cruel cross till the body of sin is crucified, if we would ever ascend with Him to glory, meanwhile we must be a candidate for all the popular contempt, denunciation and persecution which He endured. 22, 23. Nothing but entire sanctification, utterly eliminating the retaliatory spirit, can possibly qualify us to verify the character of our great and only Exemplar, who endured every conceivable insult, even spitting in His face.

If we are going to heaven we must have the grace requisite to enable us to walk in His footprints, doing as He did.

ARGUMENT LIFE AND HEALTH IN THE ATONEMENT 24. “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree in order that we being dead to sins may live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed.” This verse, in beautiful, lucid and cogent simplicity sets forth the vicarious atonement, in which the Son of God actually redeemed the whole world when He died on the cross, sweeping from the field very conceivable defalcation as to the gracious possibility of universal salvation, hence the vile sinner need only, in the utter and eternal abnegation and abandonment of all his sins, in the profound contrition of a broken heart, look to Calvary and by simple faith in the Word of God, receive and appropriate the full and free pardon of all his transgressions, rising with the shout of victory over sin, Satan and hell. Not only is life from the dead for every lost soul purchased by the vicarious atonement of Christ on the cross, but perfect soul health gloriously delivered from the remotest lingering contamination of the diabolical virus engendered by the fall, is abundantly provided for in this triumphant expiation of the human malady, unfurling the banner of entire sanctification to wave triumphantly over the blackest hell-dens of slumdom. 25. The omnipotent, crucified, risen and triumphant Christ is the tenderhearted, loving Shepherd, now calling every human soul this side the infernal portal to come unto Him. Meanwhile to all the spiritually dead He offers life and to all the sick perfect health. (CHAPTER) - ARGUMENT THE TRULY SANCTIFIED WIFE AND HER UNSANCTIFIED HUSBAND 1, 2. “Likewise ye wives, being submissive to your own husbands, in order that if any obey not the Word they shall be gained through the deportment of their wives without the Word, seeing your holy deportment which is with fear.” The infidel is the hardest soul to save this side the pit, from the simple fact that he utterly rejects the Word of God, the normal medium of salvation. The extremes include all intervening cases. Hence, if this wife can save her infidel husband without the Word, she can certainly save her husband unconditionally. Though in his infidelity he may utterly reject the Bible, yet he reads in the holy character of his wife an incarnation of the living Word, is convicted and brought to repentance, when his infidelity takes wings and flies away, leaving him in the arms of Jesus, gloriously saved, along with his wife, rejoicing in God, delighted with His Word. 3. “Whose beauty let it not be the outward adornment of plaiting the hairs and wearing of gold or the putting on of garments.” This verse negatively describes that wonderful and paradoxical wife who has power to save her husband, even though he be an infidel. We see that she does not prodigalize her time nor feed her vanity by curling her hair. Neither does she wear gold nor any kind of jewelry. This description is obligatory on all, having the full force of a divine commandment, as God commands us all to be holy.

Neither does this woman put on extra garments for mere show, but she is simple and neat in her personal apparel, free from the disgusting and expensive gaieties, vanities and follies of needless station. 4. “But the hidden man of the heart in purity of a meek and quiet spirit which before God is perfection complete.” This verse describes the charming wife in positive characteristics, clear and unmistakable. This “hidden man of the heart” is none other than the new creature created in the heart by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. The “purity of a meek and quiet spirit, which before God is perfection complete,” is a duplicated and powerful statement of Christian perfection, the second work of grace.

Hence the Holy Ghost says that the constituents of her beauty, i .e ., regeneration and entire sanctification, constituting “the beauty of holiness,” throw into eclipse all the phantasmagoria of jewelry, finery, artistic fashions and diabolical styles, which would only bankrupt and disgust her husband, leaving him unsaved, ruin her health, inflate her vanity and send her own soul to hell. 5, 6. “For in this way the holy wives who had hoped toward God were also accustomed to beautify themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose children ye have become, doing good and fearing no calamity.” Like the saintly mothers of Israel, who walked with God in the “beauty of holiness,” these charming wives are endued with the perfect love which casts out fear. Oh, that the thousands of Christian women living with unsaved husbands would avail themselves of these infallible promises, appropriate the “beauty of holiness” and save their homes from Satanic power and perdition’s doom. 7. “Likewise ye husbands, dwelling with the wife as the weaker vessel, in harmony with knowledge extending unto them honor as truly your fellow heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers be not hindered.” While the wife is the husband’s physical inferior, we see here that she is his fellow heir in the grace of life, clearly involving the conclusion of her spiritual equality with her husband as to the rights and privileges in the kingdom of God.

ARGUMENT THE MIND OF CHRIST 8. “But finally, all be like minded.” ... When God created Adam He gave him His own mind. When he yielded to Satan he forfeited God’s mind and received that of the devil, i .e ., the carnal mind. “Enmity against God.” The sinner has but one mind, and that is Satan’s. The sanctified have but one mind, i .e ., the mind of Christ. The unsanctified are James’ “double minded” people, whom he exhorts to get rid of their double mindedness by purifying their hearts ( James 4:8). Hence there is but one way to obey our Lord’s commandment that all Christians shall be like minded, and that is for all to get rid of the carnal mind and possess only the mind of Christ.

In regeneration the mind of Christ is imparted; meanwhile the carnal mind is conquered and grace given to keep it in subjection so it may not break out in actual transgression. In sanctification the carnal mind is utterly destroyed ( Romans 6:6), leaving the mind of Christ to reign without a rival. 9. When you have the mind of Christ to the exclusion of the carnal mind, you are gloriously saved from retaliatory predilections and flooded with benedictions for all. 10, 11. These verses are replete with beautiful, amiable commandments, despised by the wicked, kept with difficulty by the unsanctified Christians, but the literal delight of God’s holy people. 12. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” The verification of this wonderful verse constitutes the eventful history of all ages contrastively exhibitory of God’s righteous administration over saints and sinners. Soon after the launching of Methodism, A.D. 1739, a popular sensation to see and hear the Methodists, about whom all had heard so many paradoxical reports, swept England like a tornado, thrilling the rabble with curiosity. One bright day Archibald Vickars, a very humble lay preacher of John Wesley, walks into Selma, an old English rural town of five thousand inhabitants, takes his stand on the milestone in the center of the city and sings the grand old Methodist songs till, attracted by his stentorian voice, a great crowd, gaping with curiosity, look him in the face.

Then he proceeds to preach the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. John Hancock, Esquire, the great man of the city officially and influentially, gets awfully mad, rushes into the crowd, orders him to hush, repeats the unheeded order, then laying hands on him violently pulls the preacher down from the mile-post, beating him with his club. Of course the man of God journeys on to another field of labor. At the same hour Mother Halam, who had lived more than ninety years, now at the point of death, sends a messenger calling Esquire Hancock to her bedside; lifting up her feeble voice she says, “They tell me you pulled the Methodist preacher down from the milepost.” “I did, and beat him, and if he comes again I will give him worse.” She looks him in the face with her dying eyes, meanwhile, responsive to the spirit of prophecy coming on her, she says, “Yes, and God will pull you down.” Her spirit flew to the bosom of God. Though the magistrate was the great man of the community, prosperous in wealth, office and influence, his money took wings and flew away; his influence dying a natural death, of course they took his office from him. Years roll away, the decrepitude of age finds him a miserable vagabond, begging from door to door, eating out of slop buckets about kitchens, clothing himself with thrown away rags, and lodging in stables. One morning he is found dead in a cow stall. While they carry him on a rattling bier to a pauper’s grave passing by the milestone the remark is heard, “This man’s trouble and downfall began when he pulled the Methodist down from the milestone.”

ARGUMENT SANCTIFY THE LORD CHRIST IN YOUR HEARTS If you are a Christian you have Christ in your heart. If you are not sanctified wholly, you have others there who rival and antagonize Him.

This is your shame and His grief. It is your glorious privilege and inalienable duty to put everything out except Jesus and have him to reign in your heart without a rival. To sanctify means to purify. A purification is always effected by elimination. When you sanctify your growing crop, you take out all the weeds, brambles and filth, leaving the crop to encumber the ground alone. 13. “Who is he who shall harm you if you may be zealous of good?” The Greek word zeelootes , “zealot,” means a red-hot enthusiast. You need never fear Holy Ghost fire. Keep all you have and take all you can get. 15. “Always ready for an apology to every one asking you a reason for the hope that is within you, but with meekness and fear.” You see from this Scripture that we are always to have our testimony at tongue’s end, ever ready to give our experience and corroborate it by the Word of God.

However, our promptitude and fidelity in testimony should ever be adorned with the beautiful grace of Christian meekness, i .e ., perfect humility, and accompanied by becoming reverence for Him whose cause we are permitted in our weakness and ignorance to represent. We should be careful to keep self out of sight in our testimony, lest the enemy revive the old self life, zealously rendering prominent the Giver of our experience and conferring all possible honor on His blessed name. 16. “Having a good conscience in order that whatsoever you are calumniated those traducing your good deportment in Christ may be ashamed.” Amid all the vilifications, abuses and persecutions, which our enemies can heap on us, we may rest assured that God will bring glory and victory out of all.

ARGUMENT THE DESCENSION OF CHRIST INTO HADES The Apostolic Fathers all believed that the human soul of Christ was in Hades, while His body hung on the cross and lay in the sepulcher. The old versions of the Apostles’ Creed have the clause, “He descended into hell.”

In the English both Gehenna and Hades are translated “hell.” In the Revised Version, Gehenna only is translated “hell,” hades being transferred, as we have no synonymous word. Hades is from alpha , not, and eidoo , to see. Hence, it simply means unseen, i .e ., the invisible world, including both heaven and hell. The rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) both went to Hades, the former to burning Tartarus, and the latter to Abraham’s Bosom, i .e ., the Intermediate Paradise, in which all of the Old Testament saints accepted the translated abode till Christ “led captivity captive.” The Greek and Roman poets and philosophers (who had descended from the house of Noah) all corroborate Luke in the location of both the good and bad in the lower world, the latter in the fire of Tartarus and the former in Elysium, which means a place of unmingled bliss. The Old Testament recognizes all, both good and bad, as descending into hades. When King Saul failed to destroy Agag, i .e ., to get sanctified, like all others, he utterly apostatized. In his desperation, sorely pressed by the Philistines on the battlefields of Mount Gilboa, forsaken of God, who answered him no longer in dreams, or visions, nor by urim nor thummim, he strolls away in the night to consult the Witch of Endor, who, in her panegyric of bringing up Samuel from the dead, pursuant to Saul’s request, exclaimed aloud, “I saw God ascending out of the earth.” 1 Samuel 28:13. Thus at that moment God brought up Samuel to deliver his final prophecy to Saul, “And tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me” ( 1 Samuel 28:19), thus abundantly confirming the conclusion that in the old dispensation all the dead, good and bad, went to Hades, the former to Paradise, and the latter to fiery Tartarus. Samuel was God’s holy prophet, and of course had gone to Abraham’s Bosom, the Intermediate Paradise. He tells Saul, the hopeless apostate and suicide, that he and his unconverted sons shall be with him after they are slain in Mount Gilboa, i .e ., they would all be in the same place, Hades, like the rich man and Lazarus; Samuel in Paradise and Saul in Tartarus. Jesus said to the dying thief, “This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” That Paradise was not heaven, for Jesus testified to the women on the Resurrection morn, that He had not yet gone up to His Father, whereas He had met the thief in Paradise on the preceding Friday.

While Paul lay dead under the shower of stones at Lystra, he ascended up to the third heaven, (i .e ., to heaven proper, as the firmament is the first heaven, astronomical worlds the second, and the home of the glorified the third). This third heaven is also Paradise 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. Of course the thief did not go to this Paradise, but to Abraham’s Bosom, the Intermediate Paradise. Acts 2:31: “Foreseeing he spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that He may not be left in Hades nor did His flesh see corruption,” thus revealing most unequivocally that our Savior’s human soul was in Hades while His body lay in the sepulcher, He ascending out of Hades to receive His body instead of descending down from heaven. Ephesians 4:8-10 vividly describes the descension of our Lord “into the lower parts of the earth,” which never could mean the sepulcher in which He was deposited, which I have frequently visited. It is not in the lower parts of the earth, but on the surface, excavated out of a great rock in the mountain side, and entered horizontally. No grave is in the “lower parts of the earth,” much less our Savior’s sepulcher. 18. “Because Christ died once for Sins, the just for the unjust, that He may lead us to God, indeed being put to death in the flesh but quickened in the spirit.” Spirit here in the Greek does not begin with a capital as in the English, since it does not mean the Holy Spirit, but he human spirit of Christ. This is evident from the antithesis with flesh, which is utterly destroyed by the English translation. Our Savior is perfect God and perfect man. His perfect humanity consists of a perfect human soul and body. While His body was put to death on the cross, His human soul received a powerful quickening by the Holy Ghost; 19. “By which also having gone, he proclaimed to the spirits in prison.” On this transaction the Roman Catholic purgatory has been utterly erroneously founded, as well as other false dogmata, promising sinners a second probation. The English translation “preach,” which is utterly untrue, has been made the pillar of these heretical superstructures. The Greek is erkeeruxen , which does not mean preach the Gospel at all, but proclaim as a herald; euangelein being the word, which always means to preach the Gospel. 20. The Revised Version should have corrected this error, having “proclaim” instead of preach. Of course these wicked antediluvians were with the devils in hell. Rest assured there is not a ray of hope for disembodied sinners in this passage. When our Savior came on the earth in a human body, all hell was stirred as never before. Satan and his myrmidons in their utter spiritual blindness, despite their transcendent intellects, leaped to the conclusion that if they could kill the man-Christ they would put finale to a four thousand years war, defeating the plan of salvation, achieving ultimate victory, winding up the conflict and adding earth to hell. Therefore Satan lays under contribution all the powers of the pandemonium to kill Jesus as quickly as possible. When they succeed in the seduction of Judas, a black courier wings his flight to hell with the joyous news. Meanwhile all hell is jubilant over the victory even now in sight; another courier arrives with the thrilling news of his condemnation by the grand Sanhedrin and the signature of his death warrant by Annas, the Roman high priest, and Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest. While the pandemonium is roaring and reverberating with jubilant shouts, another fiend sweeps in on black pinion, vociferating the ravishing tidings, “Both Herod and Pilate, our loyal servants, the chief autocrats of all the land, have signed His death warrant. Hence no power in all the earth can deliver Him out of our hands.” Never in all the ages was Tartarus so vociferous with shouts of victory. Now King Diabolus, encumbering his ebony throne in the great Stygian palace, orders ten thousand tall demons mounting up to superscribe in glowing candles around the pandemonium, “Victory.”

Meanwhile other fiends arrive with the news, “He is nailed to the cross, bleeding and dying.” Beelzebub now arrives, testifying, “It is done. I stood by the cross and saw it all done. The grim monster has Him in his dark grip. He is dead!” and millions of devils vociferate the regions of woe with shouts of victory. Hark! A stentorian thunder-clap shakes the pandemonium from center to circumference! A light above the brilliancy of ten thousand noonday suns sweeps in from the portal, revealing all the dark, dismal dens of hell’s gorgon horrors. It is none other than the human soul of Christ; having evacuated the crucified body on the cross, He has come down, the herald of His own victory in all the regions of woe. The light radiant from His glorified soul reveals Him to every devil in the abyss. Paralyzed by panic they fall and acknowledge Him conqueror. With His own hands, as around the dark walls of the pandemonium, moving with the tread of a conqueror, He pulls down the prophecies of four thousand years’ successful warfare, and treads them beneath His feet.

Now He proceeds to Satan, tremulous and quaking, on his throne, seizing him by the throat, dragging him down, puts His foot on his neck, verifying the first promise made in Eden, i .e ., “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” Having triumphed over all hell, He crosses over the deep chasm, chasma , impassable to all mortals ( Luke 16:26), and before midnight enters the intermediate Paradise, called Abraham’s Bosom. Oh, how the thief runs to Him with a shout, “You said you would meet me in Paradise today and, glory to God, here you are!” Here comes Father Abraham with a tremendous shout, and takes Him in his arms. Job comes with an uproarous hallelujah. Isaac, Jacob, Caleb, Joshua, Daniel, and all the prophets, martyrs and saints, who have trodden the earth, shining, shouting and suffering for God the last four thousand years, rally around Him, rending the vaults of paradise with tremendous shouts of glory. Such an ovation that Intermediate Paradise had never known. Saturday passes by amid tremendous rejoicings. Meanwhile He marshals them all preparatory for the evacuation of the intermediate elysium, for the home of the glorified angels and redeemed saints, encircling the throne of God.

On Sunday morning begins that wonderful ascension ( Ephesians 4:8-10), in which He leads captive all the occupants of Abraham’s Bosom, now that the Abramic covenant has been verified, and sealed with His blood, thus opening heaven to all the blood-washed. Wonderful is the rapture of that triumphant ascension, accompanied by all the Old Testament saints. He comes up to the sepulcher and receives His body on the third morn. As this mighty host of Old Testament saints were all disembodied, of course they were invisible to mortal eyes. Jesus, the only one seen, because He only had His body. Meanwhile this mighty host accompany Him in His abiding forty days with His disciples, and constitute His triumphal procession when from Mount Olivet He ascended up to the glorified home of His Father in heaven. Jesus must be the first fruits of them that slept. His glorified body, the eternal confirmation of the redemptive scheme, must first of all enter heaven.

Though a number of others were raised from the dead before Christ, we have no evidence that their bodies were transfigured. Hence Jesus was the first one to raise from the dead, receiving the resurrection body. It was pertinent that all the Old Testament saints should be detained in that Intermediate Paradise till the plan of salvation was literally consummated by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. David ( Psalms 24) catches a prophetic vision of this wonderful ascension. Having risen from Mount Olivet with the velocity of lightning, they sweep through ethereal space, passing rolling worlds, glittering sphere, luminous comets and flaming suns, till now the celestial metropolis, in its ineffable glory, bursts upon their enraptured vision. “Lift joyous heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and let the King of glory come.” “Who is this King of glory?” “The Lord mighty to save, He is the King of glory.” The celestial portals all open wide, while millions of angels pour out to greet them with loud shouts: “Welcome home, ye blood-washed.” Now the King of glory entered amid the enraptured songs of the seraphim, the thrilling paeans of the cherubim, the golden harps of the archangel and the tremendous hallelujahs of the heavenly hosts, accompanied by the innumerable procession of the Old Testament saints, on and on they sweep around the clarion jubilations of countless millions, till halting before the effulgent throne, the Son salutes the Father: “Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me.” Such a testimony meeting as heaven has never seen now follows. Father Abraham leads the way, followed by Job, Moses, Joshua, Daniel, the prophets, patriarchs, saints and martyrs, to the ravishing delight of the angels.

ARGUMENT THE ANTITYPE BAPTISM SAVES 21. “Which antitype baptism even now saves us, not putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” This passage has suffered terribly in the hands of Satan’s preachers, Papistical and Protestant, who have done their utmost to drag it into conservatism to the soul-destroying heresy of baptismal regeneration, whereas it positively certifies the very opposite.

Throughout the Bible water symbolizes the Holy Ghost, while the water of the deluge destroyed the wicked antediluvians, it carried up the ark from the doom of the dying world, thus saving Noah and his family. The Greek erroneously translated “like figure,” is antitype, and should be transferred as in the Revised Version. As water is a type of the Holy Spirit, it follows as an irresistible sequence that the Spirit Himself is the Antitype. Hence the plain teaching of this passage is that the baptism of the Holy Ghost under the Gospel dispensation saves us. “Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,” i .e ., not water baptism, as it is a plain allusion to the removal of ceremonial defilement under the Levitical law, by sprinkling the water of purification ( Hebrews 9:10), which was water baptism. “But the answer of a good. conscience.” While Peter certifies that this antitype baptism is not water baptism, he simultaneously tells us it is the “answer of a good conscience,” i .e ., when God baptizes us with the Holy Ghost, He thereby gives His answer to our conscience, assuring us that it is good. 22. Christ having perfected the plan of salvation, ascending up to heaven, is lovingly received by the Father and crowned Mediatorial King, amid the ovations of the celestial universe. (CHAPTER) - ARGUMENT OUR CRUCIFIXION SIMILITUDINOUS TO THAT OF CHRIST 1. “Therefore Christ having suffered in the flesh you also arm yourselves with same mind, because the one having suffered in carnality has ceased from sin.” As Christ is the only unfallen son of Adam, His physical being was pure. Yet it suffered death on the cross for the sins of the world. How shall we be “armed with the same mind” ? By reason of the fall we all have the carnal mind which Jesus never had. As the mind which rules the body predominates even in its eclipse, so, in common parlance, the body is lost sight of. Hence our crucifixion, which is absolutely necessary, pursuant to true discipleship, while it may include the body, especially if we live in an age of martyrdom, does not essentially mean physical crucifixion, but always and invariably that of the carnal mind, which is utterly destroyed, i .e ., crucified in sanctification, leaving the heart pure from all the malevolent affections, the clean temple of the Holy Ghost. In this verse sarx , flesh, occurs twice, antithetically referring to Christ in one case and to us in the other. Hence, in the normal exegesis it refers to Christ’s mortal body and our carnal mind. This carnal mind is born in us, transmitted from Satan in the fall through Adam. It is conquered in regeneration, when the mind of Christ is imparted by the Holy Ghost; still surviving in subjugation, it is crucified on the cross, when we follow Christ in entire sanctification. 2. This verse describes the beautiful life of the sanctified, no longer in carnality, but in the sweet will of God. 3, 4. Here the Holy Ghost draws an appallingly dark picture of the wicked delighting in brutal sensualities and diabolical debaucheries, and at the same time unutterably astonished because the Lord’s people will not participate with them in their bacchanalian revelries.

ARGUMENT THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO ALL, LIVING AND DEAD 5. This certifies the general judgment, where all living and dead shall stand before the great white throne. 6. “For unto this was the Gospel also preached to the dead in order that they may be judged according to men in the flesh, and live according to God in the Spirit.” There is no argument here for second probation and not the slightest inference that the Gospel was preached to any one after death, but to the dead generations, while they were living. How is this Christ himself is the Gospel, the true light, “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” ( John 19). The Holy Ghost, who shines on every human soul in all ages and nations, is the Spirit of Christ. Hence Paul says ( Romans 1), “The heathens are left without excuse,” as salvation is, and always has been, possible to every human being. 1 John 1:7, “If we walk in the light... The blood cleanses from all sin,” applies to every human being, regardless of age, race or religion. Those who walk in all the light they have, not only receive pardon, but complete purification from sin and readiness for heaven. In the final judgment, those who have lived under the former dispensation will be judged by the Old Testament only, Christian nations by the whole Bible, while the heathen will only be judged by the laws of nature. Thus the Holy Spirit, the Revelator of Christ, so shines upon every human soul as to leave none with an apology before the judgment bar, where they will only be responsible for the light they have rejected.

ARGUMENT THE DIVINE AGAPEE HIDES THE MULTITUDE OF SINS 7. Every New Testament writer constantly reminds us that the personal Savior is speedily coming back to this world, not to suffer and to die, but to conquer and to reign. The laxity of the churches in heeding this stirring admonition largely accounts for the lamentable apostasy at the present day. The graveyard preaching, to say the least, is unapostolic. Their grand incentive to holiness was the constant expectation of their coming Lord. 8. “Before all things having divine love steadfast toward one another, because divine love hides a multitude of sins.” It is much to be regretted that the English translation has not revealed the difference between human and divine love, as the Greek does by using entirely different words, i .e ., agapee , divine love, and filia , human love. The former is the divine nature imparted by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. Romans 5:5, “The agapee of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” This agapee makes you a Christian, while sanctification destroys its enemy, the carnal mind, and leaves it to reign in your heart without a rival. “Charity” in your English is a wrong translation, agapee having no such a meaning. When the English Church made the translation in 1611 she was full of Romish fog.

While true religion makes all salvation God’s work, false religion makes it the work of man. Heathenism, Mohammedanism, Romanism, and all other dead churches, make salvation the work of man, while the Gospel makes it the work of God only. Charity is the work of man. Hence it is magnified and made a condition of salvation. “This divine agapee hides a multitude of sins. Oh, how true because it hides all you have. It does not make you blind to the sins of others, but when perfected by the cleansing blood makes you a very acute discerner of all evil, at the same time flooding you with love and bipartial philanthropy for all. While divine love is exotic in all human hearts, having been transferred by the Holy Ghost from the heart of God, human love is indigenous, being born in us, perfectly compatible with inherited depravity and, of course, utterly destitute of salvation. The rich man in hell loved his brethren so that he wanted to send them a missionary to save their souls. Popular churches for ages have been filled up with members on a profession of love, when it is nothing but human love and utterly destitute of salvation. How can I discriminate between the divine and the human love in my heart? (a) When the Holy Ghost pours out the divine agapee into your heart, he is certain to notify you. (b) When you have the divine agapee you will love your enemies and love all people without regard to race, sect or color. 9. This love makes you truly and genuinely philanthropic and hospitable. 10. It is a boundless thesaurus of heavenly grace out of which the saints minister holy benefactions indiscriminately. 11. “If any one speak as the oracles of God.” The Bible is the only authority, and this divine agapee the whole sum and substance of the Christian religion. The sectarian creeds were made during the Dark Ages, when not one man in a thousand could read. At that time an effort to focalize Bible truth into a small compass and thereby facilitate instruction, was perhaps apologetical. Now all the people can read, hence the credistic ages, to say the least, have come and gone, leaving the blessed Bible sole victor of the field. If you believe your creed to be true, of course you find it in the Bible. So preach the truth from the Bible, saying nothing about your creed, and you will glorify God, remembering that your creed will not be mentioned when you stand before the great White Throne, while you will certainly be judged by the whole Bible. “As of the strength which God supplieth in order that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ...” Here is the criterion of all soul-saving work. We are to preach nothing but the Word of God; not by the power of our intellect and learning, but by the “strength” which God supplies, i .e ., with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Oh, the counterfeit preaching passed off for gospel.

ARGUMENT BLOODY MARTYRDOM IN VIEW 12. “Beloved, be not jostled by the fiery ordeal which is among you for your testing, as something foreign happening to you.” At the time of this writing the great Roman Empire, belting the globe, was racking with the pent-up fires of martyrdom, like a surging volcano, just ready to explode and inundate the saints in deadly persecutions. Peter saw it moving in prophetic panorama. In little time he and Paul and many others sealed heir faith with their blood. Nero, the cruel tyrant, issued the murderous edict, which was repeated by his successors, till three hundred years of blood and slaughter had rolled away. Meanwhile the Christians were put to death by every conceivable torture Satan could invent, and especially were they fed to the lions in the Coliseum, for the nightly entertainment of one hundred thousand cruel spectators; these bloody martyrdoms sweeping right down to the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. 13. Peter fervently exhorted the saints of all ages to rejoice in all their persecutions, in order that they may shout victory when the Lord is revealed from heaven. 14. He assured us that when we suffer reproach or persecutions in the name of Christ, at that very time the Spirit of glory and of God is resting upon us. Under these inspiring apostolical exhortations, corroborated by their example, exultantly submitting to bloody martyrdom, no wonder the primitive Christians not only heroically brooked the persecutionary storms, but the glowing enthusiasm to wear the martyr’s crown, became the absorbing sensation of the age. 15, 16. With unreproachable lives, loyal to the ruling powers, Peter exhorts them that all their sufferings are to supervene simply in the attitude Christians. 17. The bloody persecutions seen by Peter’s prophetic eye in panoramic visions, kept the Church pure three centuries, till the great Constantinian apostasy, which supervened upon the cessation of the persecutions. Of course, the persecutions could only come by the permissive providence of God, who made them a great source of blessing to His true people. It seemed that millions must add their blood to that of Jesus to confirm the glorious plan of salvation and make a fixture in the world. If the righteous judgments of God are so terrible with His people, what will be the “end of them that obey not the Gospel of God.” Those who do not pass the terrible judgment ordeals in this world, utterly destroying carnality, must meet them in hell and endure them through all eternity, as the judgment fires in this world only can consume sin, and thus help us to win our probation, while in the world to come probation being lost, they will eternally condemn the soul itself.

ARGUMENT THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY SAVED 18. “If the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” The Greek dikaios literally means a justified man in contradistinction to the “sinner,” and the “ungodly,” who are under condemnation. The sinner is a person addicted to habits of overt wickedness, while the “ungodly,” sustaining a good moral character, are simply unsaved, i .e ., without the knowledge and possession of God in the heart. Worldly churches are largely filled up with this class. It is frequently the case, as with moral outsiders, their greatest sins are self-righteousness.

As a rule they seem to be harder to save than overt sinners, because they depend on their morality, churchanity and good works, all of which are utterly powerless to keep them out of hell, into which they plunge headlong with all of the outbreaking sinners. Not so with the justified man.

He goes to heaven when he dies, though “scarcely,” i .e ., he barely squeezes in. But see what a glorious achievement, though he barely gets in by the skin of his teeth. Having neglected sanctification during his life, he receives it in the article of death, going out of the world under the redeeming blood like an infant, and entering heaven in a state of spiritual infancy, having forfeited all of the glorious opportunities of spiritual growth, culture and development during probation (which at best are certainly very meager with the unsanctified). It is fearfully risky to live and die in the justified state, without sanctification, depending on its reception in the article of death, and then squeezing into heaven. I would not like to risk it, lest I be squeezed out instead of in. Peter gives us something infinitely better in his next letter, i .e ., the abundant entrance for the man who has not only been justified, but sanctified and enriched with the bright constellation of spiritual graces described in the first chapter. 19. God is in everything, good and bad, so far as His true people are concerned, making all things a blessing to them through perfect submission and good works. (CHAPTER) - ARGUMENT THE PASTOR’S RESPONSIBILITY AND CORONATION This paragraph is Peter’s powerful appeal to the shepherds in charge of the Lord’s flocks, i .e ., the pastors in charge of the churches. 1. In this verse Peter enforces his importunate appeal by reference to his Apostolical seniority and his wonderful experience with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, where he actually beheld the wonderful glory destined to be revealed and actually participated in by the transfigured saints when the Lord appears. 2. “Shepherd the flock of God which is among you.” Poimanate means not only to feed the flock, but take care of them in every respect, protecting them from Satan’s wolves, i .e ., the very approach of sin and appearance of evil. “Not by constraint but willingly for God’s sake.” Thus it is the positive mandate of God that the pastor shall delight to look after every member of his flock, not for money or respectability, but for the sake of God who bought them with His blood. “Not for filthy lucre, but with a ready mind.” Here Peter corroborates Jesus in His denunciation and even anathematization of a hireling ministry, certifying that they can not be relied on to take care of the flock. “When the wolf cometh, then the hireling fleeth because he is a hireling.” Oh, how true do we find the words of Jesus and Peter in reference to a hireling ministry. Suppose all ministerial salaries were this day discontinued. Would not thousands of pastors abandon their flocks and go into secular employments? Yet not one would go whom God wants to stay. Every one whom God has called would abide with his flock, true to his trust, if his salary were eliminated.

Truly a hireling ministry is the blighting curse of the fallen churches at the present day, Satan’s wolves, i .e ., dancing, card-playing, theater-going, liquor-drinking, horse-racing, and other vices too dark to mention, send church members to hell by wholesale, right under the eye of the pastor, who keeps his mouth shut, like a “dumb dog,” while he ought to be barking at the wolves and running them off. What is the solution? They pay him money. Therefore he lets them slip through his fingers into hell. Judas sold Jesus for money. Myriads of preachers have done the same and gone down to join Judas in hell. I doubt whether any other Apostle had a larger ministerial following than Judas. I have been preaching forty-three years.

Good Lord, deliver me from a preacher’s hell! I would rather have any other. Oh, the momentous responsibility of the preacher when he meets his congregation before the great white throne! 3. “Not as domineering over the heritages.” This sweeps away ecclesiastical tyranny, which has been the crying sin of the clergy in all ages. They rule with a rod of iron, thus forgetting that this is the prerogative of God alone. Their ipse dixit has burnt millions, and would still burn God’s saints if the civil arm would enforce their autocratic edicts. “But being examples of the flock.” Here we see the pastor’s prerogative.

He is to rule by his godly precept and example. He is to lead the way in holiness — doctrinal, experimental, and practical. Of course, excommunication is the legitimate ultimatum of all incorrigible wickedness.

But, alas, ecclesiastical tyrants in all ages have given themselves a notoriety by their interdictions, decapitations and martyrdoms, inflicted on the godly members of their flocks. Meanwhile the worldly and wicked receive their smiles and approval. 4. “Indeed the chief Shepherd appearing you shall receive a crown of glory which shall never fade away.” We are on the constant lookout for our chief Shepherd to ride down on a cloud. There are the unsalaried, toiling pastors in all lands, leading the people by their godly teachings and example, amid suffering; poverty and persecution. Be patient, O ye shepherds, in your daily toils and nightly vigils! Behold the chief Shepherd with His mighty angels descendeth on the throne of His glory! Lift up your weary heads, and receive from His hands that crown of glory which will never fade away, but accumulate new luster through the flight of eternal ages, while the souls you have rescued from sin and Satan and safely led through these dark valleys of sorrow and probation will forever rise up to call you blessed.

ARGUMENT PERFECT HUMILITY When John Fletcher was asked, “What is the most important Christian grace?” he answered, Humility.” To a second inquiry he said, “Humility.”

To a third he answered, “Humility,” when the inquirer desisted. 5. “Likewise ye younger people submit to the elder, and all put on humility toward one another, because God resisteth the proud, but He giveth grace to the humble.” Oh, how beautiful and bright the sweet and amiable grace of humility shines in every walk of life. It is believed that the Archangel Lucifer fell from heaven when he permitted spiritual pride to creep in, while unfortunately he ventured to contemplate the splendor and glory of the gigantic intellect which God had given him. John Wesley pronounces pride the great mother sin, whose daughters curse the earth and fill hell. If you can keep your pride thoroughly crucified, you will never fall, because God’s grace will ever sustain you. 6. “Therefore humble yourselves beneath the mighty hand of God in order that in His time He may lift you up.” The Bible reveals a topless heaven and a bottomless hell, consentaneous to the illimitable progress of all finite beings, whether on an upward or a downward tread. All the wicked are sinking every moment by the tremendous weight of their sins. At an unsuspected moment, hell fire rolls over them and they continue to sink forever, because hell has no bottom, i .e ., they illimitably progress in sin and misery through all eternity. On the contrary, God’s truly faithful people progress in wisdom and holiness, not only through this life, but throughout never-ending eternity. We all desire the upward trend, but oh, how men and devils deceive us. God’s ways are the opposite of man’s ways. Man says, “Climb,” God says, “Humble yourselves.” In God’s vocabulary, to go up is to go down, and to go down is to go up. Pride lifts you up, to drop you the more precipitously into hell. Humility humbles you down in the dust, where God’s angels ever linger, to encircle you in their pinions of light and favor you with a balloon ride to heaven. 7. “Casting your care upon Him, because there is a care to Him for you.” This is the Christian secret of a happy life. God wants us to be free as angels, disencumbered of every care, swift as birds of paradise to go on His missions of love and mercy. He wants to carry us and all of our burdens, so we may be perfectly free to do His sweet will on earth, as the angels do it in heaven.

ARGUMENT SOBRIETY AND VIGILANCE 8. “Be sober, watch.” As nothing but sin can intoxicate the human soul, nothing but entire sanctification can make it perfectly “sober,” and so keep it. Hence, “be sober” simply means be wholly sanctified. These two commandments, “watch and be sober,” walk hand in hand through the New Testament. Watch has a double meaning, as our Savior has a double nature. We are to keep our eyes on the spiritual Savior every moment we can, while He keeps His hand on us, fortifying us against all danger. At the same time, we are to be on the constant outlook for the glorified Jesus to ride down on a cloud, for whose presence perfect spiritual sobriety, i .e ., entire sanctification, is the qualification. “The devil, your adversary, is walking around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.” Though the devil goes about roaring like a lion, ready to eat you up in a moment, beware that you do not watch him lest you take your eye off of Jesus. If you keep your eye on Jesus and abide in perfect sobriety, He will attend to this roaring devil and you too. So the devil’s roaring can never hurt you.

On the contrary, it will stir you up to the battle and inspire you to fight the more Courageously, thus even utilizing the devil as a drummer to make music for you while you fight him. 9. “Whom resist steadfastly in faith.” Now Jesus is a million times stronger than the devil. He says, “It shall be unto you according to your faith.”

Therefore you have nothing to do but steadfastly resist the devil, having faith in Jesus to whip him for you, and He will do it every time. 10. “The God of all grace having called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself make you perfect, having suffered a little while, will establish, strengthen, settle you.” The “little while” you are to suffer in order to be made perfect, is just long enough for old Adam to be crucified.