228. Will you relate your experience of regeneration, and of entire sanctification?
I will. The Saviour’s precious love constrains me to testify to his gracious dealings with my soul at every suitable opportunity.
Mr. Fletcher says: “When you are solemnly called upon to bear testimony to the truth, and to say what great things God has done for you, it would be cowardice or false prudence not to do it with humility.”
It pleased the Lord to call me in early life to seek pardon and converting grace. At ten years of age I first tasted the joys of a Saviour’s love. I remember as early as then to have realized a sweet satisfaction and delight in prayer and effort to obey God. At the age of thirteen I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. Through the blessing and grace of God, I have found a home ever since in the church of my early choice.
During the first five or six years of my experience, I was often perplexed and distressed with doubts in regard to the reality of my conversion; arising from my inability to fix upon the precise time when the change was wrought. I would often see people powerfully converted, and hear them tell of the place and the time of their conversion. The tempter would then whisper in my ear, “You can not tell when you were converted, and you never had those deep convictions or those marked exercises in religious experience of which many speak.”
From this source I had much trouble, and at times, for several years, found it exceedingly difficult to hold fast my confidence. After many and severe trials on this point, the Lord enabled me to settle the matter and, a thousand thanks to his blessed name, many years have passed since I have doubted for a moment the verity of my early conversion. The Lord removed my doubts by showing me that to know the precise time of my conversion was of little importance; while the great question for me to settle was, “Have I the evidence that I am now converted?”
From this time until September 7, 1858, I maintained a steady purpose to obey God, received many spiritual refreshings from the presence of the Lord, and suffered but few doubts in regard to my justification and membership in the family of God.
During this period I was often convicted of remaining corruption of heart and of my need of purity. I desired to be a decided Christian and a useful member of the church; but was often conscious of deep-rooted inward evils and tendencies in my heart unfriendly to godliness. My bosom-foes troubled me more than all my foes from without. They struggled for the ascendency. They marred, my peace. They obscured my spiritual vision. They were the instruments of severe temptation. They interrupted my communion with God. They crippled my efforts to do good. They invariably sided with Satan. They occupied a place in my heart which I knew should be possessed by the Holy Spirit. They were the greatest obstacles to my growth in grace, and rendered my service to God but partial.
I was often more strongly convicted of my need of inward purity than I ever had been of my need of pardon. God showed me the importance and the necessity of holiness as clear as a sunbeam. I seldom studied the Bible without conviction of my fault in not coming up to the Scripture standard of salvation.
I never read Mr. Wesley’s “Plain Account,” nor the standards of Methodism on the subject of holiness, nor the memoirs of Fletcher, Bramwell, Carvosso, or Stoner, without deep conviction on the subject, and more or less effort for its attainment. I often commenced seeking holiness, but at no time made any marked progress; for as I read and prayed, some duty was presented which I was unwilling to perform, and so I relapsed into indifference.
I was often led to see my need of purity while studying for the ministry with Rev. William Hill, of Cambridgeport, Vt. Brother Hill was an able Presbyterian minister, and for a number of years pastor of a Presbyterian church in Newburg, N. Y. He was convicted of his need of entire sanctification, and obtained it at a meeting for the promotion of holiness at Mrs. Palmer’s in New York city. He lived it, professed it, and preached it, and for so doing was expelled from the Hudson River Presbytery, in April, 1844. Rev. Henry Belden was expelled at the same time for the same cause. They united with the Congregational church. Brother Hill died in holy triumph at Bristol, Conn., July 31, 1851, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.
The society and influence of that holy man were a great blessing to me. I bowed with him in prayer in his study more than a hundred times, and held sweet communion with God. Those seasons of devotion still linger in my memory as among the most precious hours of my early ministry.
Being so often convicted of my need of perfect love, and failing to obtain it, I, after a while, like many others, became somewhat skeptical in regard to the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification, as a distinct work, subsequent to regeneration. (See Section IV. of this book.) I held no clear or definite ideas in regard to the blessing of perfect love, but thought of it, and taught it, as only a deeper work of grace, or a little more religion. I taught, as many now do, a gradual growth into holiness, and threw the whole matter into indefiniteness and vague generalities. I expected to grow into holiness somehow, somewhere, and at some time, but knew not how, nor where, nor when. I urged believers to seek a deeper work of grace, and to get more religion, but seldom said to them, “Be ye holy,” “This is the will of God, even your sanctification,” or, seek “perfect love.”
I became somewhat prejudiced against the Bible terms “sanctification,” “holiness,” and “perfection,” and disliked very much to hear persons use them in speaking of their experience; and opposed the profession of holiness as a blessing distinct from regeneration. I became prejudiced against the special advocates of holiness; and at camp-meetings and in other places discouraged and opposed direct efforts for its promotion. If a pious brother exhorted the preachers to seek sanctification, or the members to put away worldliness, tobacco and gaudy attire, and seek holiness, I was distressed in spirit, and disposed to find fault.
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