Witnesses to Perfect Love Part 2

 More witnesses to Perfect Love:

8. Dr. Wilber Fisk. Rev. Dr. Holdich says: "On the 10th day of August. 1810 a camp-meeting at Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Dr. Fisk became deeply sensible of his want of full conformity to the Christian standard. He sought earnestly unto God, through the atoning sacrifice, and in the course of the meeting he obtained the 'perfect love that casteth out fear.' He lay with two other ministers three hours in a tent, prostrated under the power of God. Soon after he writes to Rev. Phineas Peck: 'O my brother, I could write pages on this subject (Perfect Love), but I must forbear. I thank God that I ever saw this day. I love our Church better than ever -- I want to see you more than ever, and all my friends in Vermont. Oh, encourage them to go on. Let holiness of heart be your motto. My dear brother, will you preach it, in the desk, in the class, and from house to house?" -- See "Eminent Dead," by Stevens, p. 328.

Dr. Fisk was one of the early presidents of Wesleyan University. He possessed a mind of rare symmetry, and was one of the most beautiful characters in the Christian church. He lived and died, loved and honored, as a ripe scholar, a useful minister, and a pure man.

9. Dr. Sheridan Baker: "Now the way of faith opened to my spiritual vision with such clearness that I definitely made the reckoning and unequivocally declared the fact. This was followed immediately by a flooding of love and heavenly sweetness, which I have no language to describe. I was now fully persuaded of my entire sanctification. The attitude of my soul is now that of complete, unreserved, and eternal surrender to God. Self property, and everything pertaining to me, have gone out of my heart into my hands, and are held in trust and used for the glory of God. I find my highest delight in talking, preaching, writing, and contributing of the means in my hands, to spread this wonderful doctrine and experience. Just now I feel, with almost unendurable sweetness, the bliss of the purified. Hallelujah -- Divine Life, March, 1879.

Dr. Baker is a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, is an able writer, devoted to God, and beloved by all who know him.

10. Mrs. Phoebe Palmer: "I could no longer hesitate; reason as well as grace forbade and I rejoiced in the assurance that I was wholly sanctified throughout body, soul, and spirit. Oh, with what triumph did my soul expatiate on the infinitude of the atonement. I saw its unbounded efficacy as sufficient to cleanse a world of sinners, and present them faultless before the throne. I felt that I was enabled to plunge and lose myself in this ocean of purity: yes,

'Plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea, And lost in love's immensity.' "

Mrs. Palmer was the Hester Ann Rogers of American Methodism, and did more to spread this experience than any other woman in this country. She believed it, and published it; she professed it, and her spirit and life were fragrant with its sweetness and power.

11. Bishop R. S. Foster: "Here again the Spirit seemed to lead me into the inmost sanctuary of my soul, -- into those chambers where I had before discovered such defilement, and showed me that all was cleansed, that the Corruptions which had given me such distress were dead -- taken away, that not one of them remained. I felt the truth of the witness; it was so; I was conscious of it, as conscious as I ever had been of my conversion. ... What a wonderful deliverance the Lord has wrought. Ought not I to praise him? Ought not I to publish this great salvation? What a rest he hath found for my soul! A rest of naked, simple faith. To him be glory for ever. Amen." -- Guide, 1850.

Bishop Foster is one of the loved and honored chief pastors of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has one of the finest and most cultivated minds in the church. Soon after his rich experience of this grace in 1849. he wrote "Christian Purity." His experience, given in detail, may be found in the "Advocate of Holiness" for March, 1872.

12. Madam Guyon:--

"A little bird am I,
Shut from the fields of air,
And in my cage I sit and sing
To him who placed me there, Well pleased a prisoner to be, Because, my God, it pleaseth thee.

Naught have I else to do
I sing the whole day long:
And he whom most I love to please
Doth listen to my song
He caught and bound my wandering wing, And still he bends to hear me sing.

My cage confines me round;
Abroad I cannot fly;
But though my wing is closely bound, My heart is at liberty.
My prison walls can not control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.

Oh! it is good to soar,
These bolts and bars above, To him whose purpose I adore, Whose providence I love,
And in thy mighty will I find

The joy, the freedom of the mind."

Madam Guyon was clear in this experience, receiving it by faith; and for professing and teaching justification and sanctification, was imprisoned in the French Bastile for four years. While in prison she penned the beautiful lines we have given. So deep and blissful was her religious experience, she declared: "The very stones of my prison appear like rubies in my eyes."

13. Dr. Adam Clarke: "I regarded nothing, not even life itself, in comparison of having my heart cleansed from all sin; and began to seek it with full purpose of heart." ... "Soon after this, while earnestly wrestling with the Lord in prayer, and endeavoring self-desperately to believe, I found a change wrought in my soul, which I endeavored, through grace, to maintain amid the grievous temptations and accusations of the subtle foe."

Dr. Clarke was the great Wesleyan commentator, and one of the most learned men of his day. He sought and obtained a pure heart in the twenty-second year of his life. His testimony is taken from a letter written to Mr. Wesley. He was led to seek this grace by a local preacher who enjoyed it.

14. Rev. Alfred Cookman: "The evidence in my case was as clear and indubitable as the witness of sonship received at the time of my adoption into the family of heaven. Oh, it was glorious, divinely glorious! I could not doubt it. Need I say that the experience of sanctification inaugurated a new epoch in my religious life? Oh, what blessed rest in Jesus! What an abiding experience of purity through the blood of the Lamb! Pioneer Experiences, p. 80.

Alfred Cookman was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a son of the lamented George B. Cookman, and was one of the purest and most lovely Christians of this century. He was led into this experience by Bishop Hamline, and perfect love became the joy and theme of his life. For years he preached and professed it, and died in holy triumph, exclaiming: "I am sweeping through the gates washed in the blood of the Lamb." Bishop Foster said at his funeral: "The most sacred man I have ever known, is he who is enshrined in that casket."