Holiness Must Be Preached Part 7

157. Is there any opposition in the ministry to putting this subject in the foreground and giving it prominence?

There is, and always has been. During a hundred years past, those who have confessed and preached perfect love, and urged believers partially sanctified to press after "the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ," have seen opposition and suffered from it.

Dr. John P. Brooks says: "Notoriously, there are ministers not a few, who are the authorized expounders of doctrine in the denominations for which they speak, who steadily and purposely ignore the subject of holiness in their pulpit ministrations. -- There the pulpits, and many of them, from which holiness is declaimed against; from some of them, misrepresented; from others, berated; from still others, calumniated." -- Address at Holiness Conference.

Mr. Wesley wrote to Dr. Adam Clarke:

"Dear Adam: The account you send me of the continuance of the great work of God in Jersey gives me great satisfaction. To retain the grace of God is much more than to gain it: hardly one in three does this. And this should be strongly and explicitly urged on all who have tasted of perfect love. If we can prove that any of our local preachers or leaders, either directly or indirectly, speak against it, let him be a local preacher or leader no longer. I doubt whether he should continue in the Society. Because he that could speak thus in our congregations can not be an honest man."

The British Wesleyan Conference, in order to preserve its societies from heresies and erroneous doctrines. in 1807, resolved, that "No person shall on any account be permitted to retain any official situation in our societies who holds opinions contrary to the total depravity of human nature -- and Christian holiness, as believed by the Methodists."

158. Is it not claimed that the opposition is in regard to the measures adopted, rather than to the doctrine or experience?

It is so claimed to some extent; but those who make objections to the measures adopted almost invariably do not claim to possess perfect love themselves, and manifest no sympathy for instantaneous sanctification, or any special meetings, or direct means for its promotion. They rarely preach upon the subject specifically, and when they do, they either labor to fault those who teach and profess this grace, or to throw the whole subject into vague and indefinite generalities. Their treatment of the doctrine and experience is the same as those ministers in churches that reject instantaneous sanctification altogether, and only teach growth and Christian culture. The results are precisely the same: none are led into the clear light and experience of perfect love, and whole churches become prejudiced against instantaneous sanctification.