back again to its scabbard, and the oppressor has been granted a respite." And to-day as we gather about this altar and look unto Jesus for salvation, God sees the blood, and the penitent soul is forgiven, and the seeker after purity made whiter than snow. God sees the blood, and the sanctified soul, with all its infirmities, passes unhurt through the trials of life, triumphs in a dying hour, and goes home to join the bloodwashed company on the other shore. When I was very small I was strangely impressed at times with my father's singing. He often sang of the blood. He would sing in a low, soft voice of peculiar sweetness, as if rehearsing to some one near him, and as if the listener were as much interested in the song as himself. This was his favorite hymn : I did not then understand its significance; but years afterward it was made plain. When we stood by his bedside and sang hymns of praise while his launched bark lingered a moment on the crystal wave, we sang the same hymn that had given him so much strength and comfort in the battle of life. The two worlds seemed to mingle into one; the radiance of the God-man's countenance made the valley of death luminous with the divine glory, and the heavenly choirs bending low seemed to swell the triumphant song, and in that hushed moment we could almost catch the glad refrain,- Made white in the blood of the Lamb! XII. ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION, AN INSTANTANEOUS "And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."— MATTHEW viii. 3. ENTIRE sanctification, or full salvation, as embraced in Methodist terminology, is the removal from the moral nature of a believer of the elements of depravity that remain in the soul after conversion. It is not the cancelling of guilt, nor the act of overcoming the inertia of spiritual death; it is not more pardon nor more life; it is the purification of the moral being from the remaining defilements of a sinful nature. Leprosy does not symbolize guilt, and it does not represent death. It represents the uncleanness of sin. It demonstrates the fact that life may exist in its full vigor in the physical organism while it is diseased, permeated with the virus of impurity. And Jesus uses this fact to illustrate how it is that the moral impurity remains in the heart after the Christ-life has been imparted to the soul. In healing the leper, Jesus represented to the church the divine method of purification. When Jesus bade him "be clean," immediately his leprosy was cleansed." The leaden mists that lie about the subject of holi ness would all disappear if teachers would be more accurate in their statements, and give the true significance to the terms they use. The word used to express an idea should be properly defined, and should be a perfect exponent of the idea expressed. The Bible speaks of a state of grace, variously denominated "holiness," "heart purity," "perfect love," and "entire sanctification." These terms are never used interchangeably with the words regeneration and justification. Entire is a qualifying term, used to express the completing of a fact or a process; and when so used indicates that some part of the achievement more or less had been previously accomplished. Hence we have the fact that entire sanctification is a part of man's salvation which is not accomplished by the act of regeneration. The process of entire sanctification is that of cleansing. It is not at all like pardoning. It is entirely different from regeneration, and it reaches an entirely different result. The condition of the soul after it is sanctified is that of purity, not only guiltless, and alive from the dead, and adopted into the family of God, but clean, consciously pure within. The experience of full salvation embraces the consciousness of the individual that he has been purified from inherent corruption, and that as a result of that process through which he has passed he is consciously pure. Webster defines sanctification as "the act of God's grace by which the affections of men are purified from sin and exalted to a supreme love to God." The word "entire" is a qualifying term, and indicates the degree of purity secured, or the extent of the sanctifying power experienced. According to the lexicon, "entire" is a term signifying "completeness in all its parts," "full," "perfect," "comprising all requisites in itself," "without defect." According to this definition, entire sanctification is a state of unalloyed purity of heart; a condition in which the moral nature is perfectly renovated; a condition in which the grace of God has removed all sin from the heart. This work of the complete restoration of moral purity to the human soul is a part of man's salvation. It is that without which he cannot enter heaven. It is God's work, and is wrought by the Holy Ghost, and is done at once; or it is a gradual work which God has left to be accomplished in some other way. Adam Clarke, the great exegete of the period, says, "In no part of the Scripture are we directed to seek remission of sins seriatim, one now, and another then, and so on. Neither in any part of the Bible are we directed to seek holiness by gradation. Neither a gradation pardon nor a gradation purification exists in the Bible." Anything is instantaneous that is done at once. "Occurring without perceptible succession," "as the passage of electricity through a given space." If the experience of heart purity is reached by a gradual process after conversion, it must be either by growth or by elimination of impurity by penance. For those who believe it to be accomplished by death rec |