The Message of Victory Oct-Dec 1974 / Washed in the Blood of the Lamb

His father, George Cookman, a Yorkshireman, was converted at eighteen years of age.  While undertaking a business engagement which took him across to America, he received a clear call from God to return to that land as a preacher of the Gospel.  After spending a time in that country, he returned to Britain for his bride, Sarah Barton, whose home was in Doncaster.  As a new convert, she had demonstrated her fidelity to her new-found faith in the way in which she had endured persecution at the hands of her aunt within her own home.  She gladly left her affluent circumstances, to share the hardships of the new country with her husband in February, 1827.
Alfred was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, in January, 1828.  The consciousness of his parents in regard to their spiritual responsibility resulted in their giving the oldest of their six children to God in an especial way.
As a lad of eleven, Alfred attended one of his father’s services, where the penitent form was crowded with seekers.  His heart, too, was moved upon by the Holy Spirit.  As there seemed no room for him at the front, he made his way to a corner of the church.  Here the earnest prayer of the weeping boy was, “Precious Savior, Thou art saving others; oh, wilt Thou not save me?”  He afterwards related his experience at that time:
“As I wept and prayed and struggled, a kind hand was laid on my head.  I opened my eyes and found it was a prominent member and elder in the Presbyterian Church.  He had observed my interest and, obeying the promptings of a kind, sympathizing Christian heart, he came to encourage and help me.  I remember how sweetly he unfolded the nature of faith and the plan of salvation.  I said, ‘I will believe, I do believe; I now believe that Jesus is my Savior; that He saves me, yes, even now.’  And immediately

‘The opening heavens did round me shine
With beams of sacred bliss;
And Jesus showed His mercy mine
And whispered I am His.’”

The death of the husband and father necessitated a change of residence, and the city of Baltimore became the site of the Cookman home.  Before he was fifteen, Alfred became a Sunday School teacher.  The next year, he joined several other young men in the organization of a mission to sailors and poor children who frequented the docks of the harbor on Chesapeake Bay.  They rented a room, which they named “The City Bethel,” and there they conducted services.
Alfred, though the youngest member of the group, so clearly demonstrated his ability as a speaker, as well as the Divine touch upon his life, that friends began to recognize his ultimate call of God to the ministry.  His first effort of note in this direction was the delivery of a funeral sermon at the death of a Christian friend, when he chose as his text, “To die is gain.”
So it was that, at eighteen years of age, Alfred Cookman said goodbye to his family and entered upon his ministerial career.  Among his mother’s parting words to him was the exhortation, “My son, if you would be supremely happy or extensively useful in your ministry, you must be an entirely sanctified servant of Jesus.”  This admonition made the most profound impression upon his mind and heart.
“Frequently I felt led to yield myself to God and pray for the grace of an entire sanctification.  But then the experience would lift itself up, in my view, as a mountain of glory, and I would say, ‘It is not for me.  I could not possibly scale that shining summit.  And if I could, my besetments and trials are such, I could not successfully maintain so lofty a position.’”
His itinerary took him to various preaching appointments and, at one of these, his heart was gladdened by the arrival of Bishop and Mrs. Hamline for the purpose of dedicating a new church.  This saintly man remained about a week preaching several times with the unction of the Holy Spirit.  He also conversed with Cookman in a pointed way regarding his need of sanctification.  His exhortations had a most beneficial effect upon the young minister and drove him to earnest prayer.  In his own words:
“Kneeling by myself, I brought an entire consecration to Christ. I covenanted with my own heart and with my heavenly Father that this entire but unworthy offering should remain upon the altar, and that henceforth I would please God by believing that the altar (Christ) sanctifieth the gift.  Do you ask what was the immediate effect?  I answer, peace—a broad, deep, full, satisfying and sacred peace.  This proceeded not only from the testimony of a good conscience before God but likewise from the presence and operation of the Spirit in my heart.  Still I could not say that I was entirely sanctified, except as I had sanctified or set apart myself unto God.
“The day following, finding Bishop and Mrs. Hamline, I ventured to tell them of my consecration and faith in Jesus, and in the confession I realized increasing light and strength.  A little while after, it was proposed by Mrs. Hamline that we spend a season in prayer.  Prostrated before God, one and another prayed.  While I was thus engaged, God, for Christ’s sake, gave me the Holy Spirit as I had never received Him before.
“The great work of sanctification that I had so often prayed and hoped for was wrought in me, even in me.  I could not doubt it.  The evidence in my case was as direct 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!
“Need I say that the experience of sanctification inaugurated a new epoch in my religious life?  Oh, what blessed rest in Jesus!  Oh, what an abiding experience of purity through the blood of the Lamb!  What a conscious union and constant communion with God!  What increased power to do or suffer the will of my Father in Heaven!  What delight in the Master’s service!  What fear to grieve the infinitely Holy Spirit!  What love for, and desire to be with the entirely sanctified!  What joy in religious conversation!  What confidence in prayer!  What illumination in the perusal of the sacred Word!  What increased unction in the performance of public duties!”
But this sacred experience was marred when Cookman, present at his first conference of the Methodist Church, engaged with other ministers in conversation which quenched the Holy Spirit.  He said later:
“Forgetting how easily the infinitely Holy Spirit might be grieved, I allowed myself to drift into the spirit of the hour.  And after an indulgence in foolish joking and story-telling, I realized that I had suffered serious loss.  To my next field of labor, I proceeded with consciously-diminished power.
“Perhaps to satisfy my conscience, I began to favor the arguments of those who insisted that sanctification, as a work of the Holy Spirit, could not involve an experience distinct from regeneration.”
Although the young minister no longer had the inward assurance of full salvation, his preaching during the next decade seemed most acceptable to the churches he pastored.  He was the most popular preacher in the Conference, and was in demand on many platforms.  Calls came from churches in the larger cities in rapid succession.  But in spite of all the outward success, he was dissatisfied and realized that nothing could surpass personal godliness.
It was during the 1857 revival that swept across the American continent, that Alfred Cookman was challenged to retake his stand in defense of the doctrine of “Perfect Love.”  He was pastoring at this time the church at Green Street, Philadelphia, and had come to acknowledge that much of his energy had been frittered away by the inner conflict that had raged within.  The Spirit was leading him back to the simple faith of his first consecration, but was also directing him forward to a more mature understanding of the doctrine and experience.  Of his restoration, he wrote ten years after:
“Oh, how many precious years I wasted in quibbling and debating respecting theological differences, not seeing that I was antagonizing a doctrine that must be spiritually discerned, and the tendency of which is manifestly to bring people nearer to God!
“Meanwhile, I had foolishly fallen into the habit of using tobacco; an indulgence which, besides the palatable gratification, seemed to minister to both my nervous and social natures.  When I would confront the obligation of an entire consecration, the sacrifice of my foolish habit would be presented as a test of obedience.  I would consent.  Light, strength and blessing were the result.
“Afterward temptation would be presented.  I would listen to suggestions like these:  ‘This is one of the good things of God.’  ‘Your religion does not require a course of asceticism.’  ‘This indulgence is not especially forbidden on the New Testament page.’   ‘Some good people whom you know are addicted to this practice.’  Thus, seeking to quiet an uneasy conscience, I would drift back into the old habit again.
“After a while, I began to see that the indulgence at best was doubtful for me, and that I was giving my carnality rather than my Christian experience the benefit of the doubt. It could not really harm me to give it up, while to persist in the practice was costing me too much in my religious enjoyments.
“I found that after all my objections to sanctification as a distinct work of grace, there was, nevertheless, a conscious lack in my own religious experience—it was not strong, round, full, abiding.  I frequently asked myself, ‘What is it that I need and desire in comparison with what I have and profess?’
“I looked at the three steps insisted upon by the friends of holiness—namely, ‘First, entire consecration; second, acceptance of Jesus moment by moment as a perfect Savior; third, a meek and definite profession of the grace received’; and I said, ‘These are scriptural and reasonable duties.  I will cast aside all preconceived theories, doubtful indulgences and culpable unbelief, and retrace my steps.’  Alas that I should have wandered from the light at all, and afterward wasted so many years in vacillating between self and God!  Can I ever forgive myself?  Oh, what bitter, bitter memories!
“The acknowledgment I make is constrained by candor and a concern for others.  It is the greatest humiliation of my life.  If I had the ear of those who have entered into the clearer light of Christian purity, I would beseech and charge them with a brother’s interest and earnestness that they be warned by my folly.  Oh, let such consent to die, if it were possible ten deaths before they willfully depart from the path of holiness; for, if they retrace their steps, there will still be the remembrance of original purity tarnished, and that will prove a drop of bitterness in the cup of their sweetest comfort.
“I again accepted Christ as my Savior from all sin, realized the witness of the same Spirit and since then have been walking in the light—realizing that experimental doctrine of the fellowship and communion with saints.  I humbly and gratefully testify that the blood of Jesus cleanseth me from all sin.
“‘As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.’  That is, as I understand, ‘Maintain the same attitude before God you assumed when you accepted Christ as your all-sufficient Savior.’  I received Him in a spirit of entire consecration, implicit faith and humble confession.  The constant repetition of these three steps, I find, enables me to walk in Him.  I cannot afford for a single moment ever to remove my offering, to fail in looking unto Jesus, or to part with the spirit of confession.”
In 1851, Cookman was married to Annie Bruner.  The union was a happy one, based, as Alfred remarked on the tenth anniversary of their wedding, upon the “stones” of love, truth, purity, kindness, fidelity, sincerity, constancy, thankfulness, holiness and Christ as the Foundation.
His speaking appointments necessitated absences from his loved partner.  Once when his loneliness almost overwhelmed him, he wrote to her:
“I bowed my knee in prayer and sweetly realized that I was in the best of company.  My compassionate Savior came quickly to my relief, and the room was transformed into the audience-chamber of Deity.  Oh, how unutterably sweet—how indescribably valuable, is the religion of the Lord Jesus!”
This unusual man received his strength at the Mercy Seat.  His wife tells how she would remonstrate with him about his night vigils only to receive the answer that he could not rest while the burden of the people was upon him.  Often he would wrestle in his study until the day broke.  This intimate communion with the Lord affected his public prayers.  One man in a service, hearing his impassioned pleading, opened his eyes, to see the minister kneeling with hands stretched toward Heaven, and then rising from his knees and reaching as high as he could.  Then falling upon his knees again, he thanked God for the blessings asked for.
An intelligent young convert was impressed by the godly Alfred Cookman.  “What sermon did you hear him preach?”  he was asked.  “I never heard him preach, but I have watched him as he was walking along the street.”
It is not strange that Cookman’s arduous public life took a heavy toll of his strength.  Instead of taking holidays, he would engage in strenuous efforts at some camp meetings.  Although he felt his physical powers waning, he did not refuse any opportunity to lift his voice like a trumpet in behalf of the full Gospel.  On October 22, 1871, he preached his last sermon.  Announcing his subject and holding a faded leaf in his hand, he solemnly read the text, “We all do fade as a leaf” (Isa. 64:6).  The congregation remarked afterwards upon the unusual brightness emanating from his countenance.  As he finished his address, he handed the leaf to a friend with the words, “The leaf and the preacher are very much alike—fading.”
He was so weak that two friends escorted him homeward.  To them, he remarked:
“I know it is not popular to hold up the doctrine of holiness, but I thought I would do my whole duty then; I feel this may be my last opportunity.”
Among his final utterances were:  “I am sweeping through the gates,” and “washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  God gave this loving child of His, who spent only forty-four years in this vale of tears, such a glimpse of the efficacy of the cleansing of the “blood of the Lamb” as seems to be granted to few on this earth.  But this affirmation was more than once uttered.  It was the theme of the sick room; it created the atmosphere that gathered in that sacred place.
Doubtless the same reality that caused the martyrs to sing in the flames, enabled the suffering preacher to exult in the fruits of Redemption as they applied to the vital needs of the hour.  His feet were painful in the extreme, because of a peculiarly violent form of rheumatism.  He explained that if every bone in his ankles and soles of his feet were a tooth, with the raw nerves throbbing acutely in each, it would be comparable to the pain he endured.  But to him it was turned to blessing.  Let us listen as he explains:
“I have known for many years what it is to be washed in the blood of the Lamb; now I understand the full meaning of that verse, ‘These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’  I used to maintain that the blood was sufficient, but I am coming to know that tribulation brings us to the blood that cleanseth.”
When his mother had reminded him that the blessed Savior had suffered in His feet, he commented, “You know the nails pierced His precious feet, and He can sympathize with me in my sufferings.”
Mr. Cookman had a vision of Heaven during his final illness.  He declared it to have been more than a dream.  He found himself just inside the gates and was first greeted by his grandfather who said, “When you were in England, I took great pleasure in showing you the different places of interest, now I welcome you to Heaven, my grandson, washed in the blood of the Lamb!”  Then his brother George embraced him exclaiming, “Welcome, my brother, washed in the blood of the Lamb!”  And lastly his son Bruner repeated the refrain, “Welcome, my father, washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  Each one of these in turn presented him to the Throne.
Cookman’s comment to his wife was, “That was abundant entrance.”  Hear this advocate of cleansing through the blood proclaiming once more:
“The best hours of my illness were when the fierce fires of suffering were kindling and scorching all around me.  It has convinced me that full salvation is the only preparation for the ten thousand contingencies that belong to a mortal career.  Oh, how soothing to feel, hour by hour, that the soul has been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and to experience the inspiration of that ‘perfect love that casteth out fear that hath torment.’”
And so as the end approached, the same witness was given to all!  To his physician, it was:
“Washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  To a Presbyterian minister, he confessed to the assurance of full salvation, saying, “Such views of Christ’s presence with me—such views of His cleansing blood have I had never before!”  To a dear colleague in the ministry, he said, “I have tried to preach Holiness; I have honestly declared it; and oh, what a comfort it is to me now!  I have been true to Holiness; and now Jesus saves; saves me fully.  I am so sweetly washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  And to his brother just before the end it was, “Death is the gate to endless glory; I am washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  Another loved one just heard him whisper, “This is the sickest day of my life, but all is well; I am so glad I have preached full salvation; what should I do without it now?  If you forget everything else, remember my testimony, ‘I am washed in the blood of the Lamb.’”
And so he passed through “the gates,”  November 12, 1871, to join the great throng who are “washed in the blood of the Lamb.”  The words of Bishop Foster at Cookman’s funeral service could well have been voiced by many another, “The most sacred man I have ever known is he who is enshrined in that casket.”

The above account of the experience of Alfred Cookman is a slightly abridged version of the one which appears in the paper-back book entitled They Knew Their God.  If you are hungry for “Full Salvation” you must read this collection of sketches of those who “journeyed further into God,” written by E. and L. Harvey and E. M. Hey.

We by His Spirit prove
And know the things of God,
The things which freely of His love
He hath on us bestowed;

His Spirit to us He gave,
And dwells in us, we know:
The witness in ourselves we have,
And all its fruits we show.
—C. Wesley.

The Lord of all things, all beings, and all times has led my faith out of things shakable into His unshakable Self—the eternal, immovable center around which the rising and ebbing tides of time and nature swing, but can not unsettle.
—G. D. Watson

If now the witness were in me,
Would He not testify of Thee
In Jesus reconciled?
And should I not with faith draw nigh,
And boldly “Abba, Father,” cry,
And know myself Thy child!
—C. Wesley.

Holy Ghost, no more delay;
Come and in Thy temple stay;
Now Thine inward witness bear,
Strong, and permanent, and clear;
Spring of Life, Thyself impart;
Rise eternal in my heart!
—C. Wesley.

EDITORIAL
TWENTIETH CENTURY DECEPTION

There is in this life nothing so wonderful as a blessed hope of eternal salvation through Christ’s death on Calvary; there is on the other hand, nothing more sad or more to be regretted than a false hope, built on some form of human effort.  We write with love and great concern as we try to warn our readers as to the great danger of resting on a false hope ourselves, or of helping to generate a false hope in others.
All down the years, through the New Testament times, during the Dark Ages and even to the present, men have attempted to save their souls by their good works—efforts at helping others, giving of their money, their time, work, work, work, but always in vain.  George Whitefield described such an effort as attempting to climb to Heaven on a rope of sand.
Salvation by penance has been well illustrated by the monk starving himself, by the hermit beating himself, by the pilgrim wearing himself out by long pilgrimages.  All such vain attempts to find peace with God are false hopes that we can somehow atone for our sins by what we suffer.
Salvation by churchmanship has been a popular “road to Heaven” that has deceived millions.  Church attendance, church loyalty, church work, church building and the forwarding of the work of the church leave a person where they find him—hopeless, frustrated, lost.
Along with this is the idea of salvation by an ordinance, particularly by baptism.  Whether it be infant baptism or baptismal regeneration of the adult, it has always proved to be a wrong road, a false hope.
Others have striven to arouse hope within by comparing themselves with their fellowmen.  In our work among the drunkards and other human derelicts, we have been saddened to see the poor degraded one point always to someone he considers lower than himself.  The boast that he would not be like that other fellow seems to foster a strange variety of self-righteousness.  Sometimes also it is simply, “I am as good as the other fellow—I do not do anybody any harm,” that makes the deluded one go on hoping in vain.
But Satan in the twentieth century has presented his masterpiece because it so simulates God’s true provision.  This is salvation by a mental formula or decision.  It admits there is a Heaven and that there is a Hell.  It admits the need of Christ’s sacrifice.  It admits many of the phrases and phases of reality, but it omits the essential work of the Holy Spirit.  Where is the conviction that seized our fathers, that smote us?  The Church prayed till the Holy Ghost came in power and made real the messages on “Hell,” “The Judgment,” “The Second Coming” or “Repentance” until we saw ourselves as Hell-deserving sinners and then wept and prayed to God for mercy.  Thank God that, instead of trained counselors telling us when to believe, we had around us men who if necessary would pray with us for hours till peace came.
God heard us and then followed that other gracious working of the Holy Ghost, the arising in our sad hearts of a living, Spirit-inspired faith, that Jesus had died for us and that His blood now availed even for us as we now cried for mercy.  And finally—it may have been almost immediately or it may have been later—there came an assurance that we were the “sons of God.”  It came in various ways to varying individuals but it was unmistakable and it caused great peace and abundant joy.  All we experienced afterwards and all the Bible study only strengthened this inner assurance as the days went by.
This is what is sadly lacking today.  Adam Clark shows most convincingly in the following paragraph, the utter necessity of the Holy Spirit’s operation on the soul of man, giving continuous assurance that the work is done.
“What is Christianity without it?  A mere system of ethics; an authentic history; a dead letter.  It is by the operations of the Holy Spirit in the souls of believers, that the connection is kept up between Heaven and earth.  The grand principle of the Christian religion is to reconcile men to God by Christ Jesus; to bring them from a state of wrath to reconciliation and favor with God; to break the power, cancel the guilt, and destroy the very being of sin; for Christ was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.  And can this be done in any human soul, and it know nothing about it, except by inference and conjecture?  Miserable state of Christianity indeed, where no man knows that he is born of God!  This assurance of God’s love is the birthright and common privilege of all His children.”
We plead with evangelists and personal workers that they do not attempt to do the work of the Holy Spirit.  We also plead with seekers that they be not put off with a false hope because of a mental decision to serve Christ.  That is a step, but they must not stop there.  “Pray till you know you are a sinner and then pray till you know within your heart that you are saved.”

THE WITNESS BEARER

The Holy Ghost is a witness bearer to all humanity of their spiritual condition.  He is sent to the sinner to bear witness to him and convict him of sin, in rejecting Jesus (John 16:9).  He bears witness to the believing convert that he is a child of God.  “Ye received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.  The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”  (Rom. 8:15-16).  And, He is a witness to “them that are sanctified.”  “And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith”  (Acts 15:8).  Turn also to that companion Scripture, Hebrews 10:14:  “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.  And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us.”
That doubtless was why St. Paul was so “persuaded,” and so marvelously serene in all the inconceivable evils that beset him.  He had the witness within him, and knew that his “life was hid with Christ in God,” and that a sanctifying Savior was living in him (Gal. 2:20).  This was what enabled the Apostle John, another instance of sanctification, to say:  “And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he gave us.”  “It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 3:24 and 5:7).
Sinners are ever ready to question the witness of the Spirit to believers of their justification.  And it is a very sad fact that believers, in the same way, turn around and question the witness of the Spirit to the sanctification of a believer.
Hear that wonderful man of early Methodist annals, Carvosso, say, when seeking sanctification a year after conversion:
“I then received the full witness of the Spirit that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin.”

Rev. William Bramwell testifies:

“The Lord, for Whom I had waited, came suddenly to the temple of my heart, and I had an immediate evidence that this was the blessing I had been for some time seeking.  My soul was all wonder, love and praise.”

Rev. Benjamin Abbott wrote:

“In three days God gave me a full assurance that He had sanctified me, soul and body.  I found it day by day manifested to my soul by the witness of the Spirit.”

Bishop Hamline says of his experience:

“All at once I felt as though a hand, not feeble, but omnipotent, not of wrath, but of love, were laid on my brow.  I felt it not only outwardly but inwardly.  It seemed to press upon my whole body, and diffuse all through and through it a holy, sin-consuming energy.”

Mrs. Jonathan Edwards gives her experience in these glowing words:

“So conscious was I of the joyful presence of the Holy Spirit that I could scarcely refrain from leaping with transports of joy.  My soul was filled and overwhelmed with light and love and joy in the Holy Ghost, and seemed just ready to go away from the body.”

Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, the blessed evangelist, wrote:

“While thus exulting, the voice of the Spirit again appealingly applied to my understanding:  ‘Is not this sanctification?’  I could no longer hesitate, reason as well as grace forbade; but I rejoiced in the assurance that I was wholly sanctified throughout body, soul, and spirit.”

Dr. Daniel Steele, relating his experience, writes:

“Very suddenly, after about three weeks diligent search, the Comforter came with power and great joy to my heart.  He took my feet out of the realm of doubt and weakness, and planted them forever on the Rock of assurance and strength . . . In the language of Dr. Payson, I daily exclaim, ‘O that I had known this twenty years ago!’”

Bishop Foster writes of his experience thus:

“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 of it as I had ever been of my conversion.”

Professor T. C. Upham, D. D., a Congregationalist, testifies:

“There is calm sunshine upon the soul.  I have continually what seems to me to be the witness of the Holy Spirit—that is to say, I have a firm and abiding conviction that I am wholly the Lord’s, which does not seem to be introduced into the mind by reasoning nor by any methods whatever of forces and self-made reflection, and which I can ascribe only to the Spirit of God.  It is a sort of interior voice which speaks silently, but effectually, to the soul, and bids me be of good cheer . . . I cannot help saying, with the apostle, ‘God hath also sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.’”

—A. M. Hills in Holiness and Power

WHEN FAITH TAKES PLACE

God has a platform called Perfect Consecration.  It stands marvelously connected with the great blessing He has for the soul of the believer.  It has some kind of spiritual machinery above it that can tell the exact physical and moral weight of the man desiring the downpour of the outpoured blessing.  It requires the whole weight of the man to get the blessing.  If a man registers one hundred and fifty pounds, it is no use for him to palm off one hundred and forty-nine on God.  He knows every pennyweight of the life.  He is going to give all, and demands all.  It is vain to try to deceive Him.  We cannot deceive the weighing scales on street corners and in waiting rooms.  The arrow will not point out your weight until you drop your coin in the slot.  The Platform of Consecration seems to have no thought, intelligence, design, life or motion about it so long as the man fails to place the whole of himself and life upon it.  God seems to be far away and oblivious of what is going on.  The heavens look empty.  The sky is without answering voice or waving hand.  The spiritual slot machine does not record; there is no sparkling, overflowing water in the trough of life.  And yet, in spite of these things, what faithful machinery is in and under that platform!  How the arrow points when the price is paid!  How delicate, and yet how true and powerful that spring in the moral machinery of His great grace, that the instant it is touched a cataract of glory descends into the soul!

—Beverley Carradine.

The apostles knew nothing of an unconscious incoming indwelling of the personal Paraclete.  The philosophy of the mind seems to require that the introduction of another personality to me must be with my assured knowledge . . . If the Holy Spirit takes up His abode in me, and converses with me and inspires love in me to Him and to others, shall I not be conscious of His personal presence?

—Daniel Steele.

Neither our spirit alone, nor God’s Spirit alone, make this certificate, but both concurring.  God’s Spirit and our spirit meeting together are concordes and contestes, joint witnesses.  Indeed, the principal work comes from God’s Spirit; He is the primary cause of this assurance.—T. Adams.

THE FORGOTTEN WITNESS

By Mrs. E. F. Harvey

“One cause of the decline in the quality of religious experience among Christians these days,” said A. W. Tozer, “is the neglect of the doctrine of the inward witness.”  This truth was clearly taught by the early Church.  The Bible abounds in the exultant language of strong assurance.  “I know . . . We know . . . We are assured.”  The saints of God, who stand out with clarity from the pages of Church history, likewise were those who experienced that strong inward witness of the Spirit that they were accepted of God and were renewed in His image.
Richard Baxter, the Puritan divine, for many years afraid of the “folly of fanatics which tempted him long to overlook the strength of this testimony of the Spirit,” later said:
“I am now much more apprehensive than heretofore of the necessity of well grounding men in their religion, and especially of the witness of the indwelling Spirit; for I more sensibly perceive that the Spirit is the great witness of Christ, and Christianity to the world.”
For hundreds of years this blessed truth was not clearly taught by the Church.  John Wesley felt that this was “one grand part of the testimony which God had given the Methodists to bear to all mankind.”  His old father, the Rector of Epworth, lay dying and cried:  “The inward witness, John, the inward witness is the proof of Christianity.”  For many years, John Wesley did not enjoy this witness.  At Aldersgate, a heart-warming experience came to this churchman, changing all his emphasis from that time forward.  He has left us a definition of this inward witness:
“By witness of the Spirit we mean an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God, that Jesus Christ has loved me, that all my sins are blotted out and I, even I, am reconciled to God.  I do not mean hereby that the Spirit of God testifies this by an outward voice.  No, nor always by an inward voice, although He may do this sometimes.  Neither do I suppose that He always applies to the heart (although He often may) one or more texts of Scripture.  But He so works upon the soul by his immediate influence and by a strong, though inexplicable operation, that the stormy wind and troubled waves subside and there is a sweet calm, the heart resting in Jesus and the sinner being entirely satisfied that all his iniquities are forgiven and his sins covered.”
Adam Clark, the Methodist commentator and associate with Wesley in the work of the ministry, wrote to an enquirer about this wondrous truth:
“I should never have looked for the witness of the Spirit, had I not found numerous Scriptures which most positively asserted it, or held it out by necessary induction; and had not I found, that all the truly godly of every sect and party, possessed the blessing, a blessing which is the common birthright of all the sons and daughters of God.
“I met with it everywhere, and met with it among the most simple and illiterate, as well as among those who had every advantage which high cultivation and deep learning could bestow.  Perhaps I might with the strictest truth say that, during the forty years I have been in the ministry, I have met with at least forty thousand, who have had a clear and full evidence, that ‘God for Christ’s sake had forgiven them their sins,’ ‘The Spirit Himself bearing witness with their spirits, that they were the sons and daughters of God.’”
William Carvosso, the saintly Cornish Methodist itinerant said:
“This blessed witness of the Spirit, both in justification and sanctification, is what I see the necessity of more than ever.  For my own part, I do not see what progress professors of religion can make without this.  Did I say religion?  Can they be deemed possessors of true religion at all, till they so believe as to have the witness in themselves.  The saints of old had it.  Abel received the witness that he was righteous; he had it too that his gifts were accepted.  Enoch had the inward witness that he pleased God.  The elders had it also, Abraham, and David, and the prophets.  And shall not we, who live in a brighter day?  Yes, we shall, if we will only steadfastly believe and diligently seek His face.”
The Salvation Army brought many true sons and daughters into the kingdom of God, who dared for God, suffering privations and hardships untold.  The witness of the Spirit was a cardinal tenet of the Army Mother, Catherine Booth.  As a young woman she had not been content with a “think-so salvation.”  She had sought earnestly until the Spirit witnessed with her spirit that she had indeed passed from death unto life.  Hear her:
“Saving faith is not intellectual perception of the truth.  If a mere intellectual perception of the truth were saving faith, the devil would have been saved long ago!  There are tens of thousands of people in this country who have been taught that because they have received the facts about Jesus Christ into their minds, they are Christians.  Saving faith is the committal, the giving over of the soul and of the whole being to God.  I never knew a soul come to that in my life who did not soon get flooded with light.”
Samuel L. Brengle, writer and speaker among Salvationists, wrote on this subject:
“Again, the Holy Spirit not only witnesses to the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God, but He also witnesses to sanctification.  ‘For by one offering he hath perfected them that are sanctified.  Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us.’  Indeed, one who has this witness can no more doubt it than a man with two good eyes can doubt the existence of the sun when he steps forth into the splendor of a cloudless noonday.  It satisfies him, and he cries out exultantly, ‘We know, we know.’”
The teaching of the witness of the Spirit is a safeguard against a mere intellectual assent to Gospel truths.  Seekers should be advised that while their part is certainly to believe, still they should never rest satisfied until they have a strong assurance that God has accepted them.  He is the offended party; we, the rebels suing for His mercy.  It is sheer effrontery to say, “I accept Christ,” without seeking His acceptance of me after years of rebellion and unbelief.
While the seeker thus earnestly pleads for the witness of the Spirit, he searches the Scripture to bring his life into harmony with its teachings.  Dishonesty of conduct or profession are brought to the light by the Spirit and confessed; harmful friendships are severed; worldly ambitions are laid upon God’s altar; worldly dress and needless adornments are abandoned; the squandering of precious time in useless hobbies is brought under the Spirit’s searching gaze and the precious moments consecrated for something of infinitely more value.  Frozen assets, both of talents and money, are yielded to God unconditionally to be kept and used henceforth only for His honor and glory.
The old-time records of earnest searchers reveal persons under such Divine scrutiny, bringing every thought into captivity to the law of Christ.  And the blessed Spirit never failed to witness to a complete abandonment of the person so presenting their bodies, a living sacrifice unto God, for we are told that this is most acceptable unto God.
Because mere man has usurped the place that the Holy Spirit alone should occupy, multitudes have theoretically entered the sacred precincts of the outward church with scarcely any concept of God’s demands for His people.  Consequently they have brought into the church a floodtide of gross inconsistencies.  The Psalmist was right when he said that only he entered the holy mount of God who has “clean hands and a pure heart; and who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully.  He shall receive the blessing of the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation.”  Then he summarizes by saying, “This is the generation of them that seek him.”
We feel for these deluded, deprived persons who have professed to enter into Christian faith by assent to a verse of Scripture, quoted by a counselor unannointed by the Spirit.  We have asked doubtful and troubled souls, “Have you an inward witness that you are a child of God?”  Their puzzled looks and indefinite answers reveal the fact that they have never heard whether there be an inward witness of the Spirit of God.  They invariably only know the processing by modern counseling methods:  “Do you believe this verse?  Then you are saved.”  Those so deceived travel on for years, beset by doubts and depression, because they can no longer enjoy the world nor have they fully entered the kingdom of God.  These require a social life with a religious flavor, and worldly diversions but with a religious slant so as to quiet the conscience.
It would seem to us that such professors could be likened to those, who upon  hearing the will of a relative read out to them by the solicitor, have gone away claiming the inheritance without having the Executors in reality make over to them the assets.  There usually is a waiting time between the declaration of the will, and the time needed by the Executors to examine the will and make certain the conditions therein before finally handing over to the Legatees such riches as their Benefactor had left to them.
Now God has given the power of Executor to the Holy Spirit to act on behalf of the God-head.  He must be the active agent in making real to me all that God the Father and God the Son have bequeathed to me in this so great salvation.  It is the power and action of the Holy Spirit which makes all the difference between my claiming the riches, or my possessing them.
Let us humbly invite the quenched and grieved Holy Spirit back into our Christianity!
Doubting souls awaken the deepest sympathy in me, having myself long suffered from this cause until Jesus wrought a complete cure.  To such, I have a special mission.  “I know not what it is to doubt; my heart is ever gay.”  This assurance has not been interrupted for one moment.—Jay.

’Tis Thine the blood to apply,
And give us eyes to see
Who did for every sinner die
Hath surely died for me.

No man can truly say
That Jesus is the Lord,
Unless Thou take the veil away,
And breathe the living word.
—C. Wesley.

THE EARNEST-PENNY OF SALVATION—

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT
By William Whately

William Whately, the writer of the accompanying article, came from old Puritan stock.  Born at Banbury in May, 1583, his was a godly heritage, both parents being devout Christians.  At fourteen he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where his tutor daily gathered his students together for prayer.  When he married he chose as his life partner one who was in every way suited, and who shared his keen Christian principles.  Her grandfather had suffered dearly for his faith in the reign of Queen Mary.  Only through the kind intervention of an Under-Sheriff, did he escape being burned alive at Salisbury.  He languished in prison for years, until released on the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne.  But it was not in his godly background that Whately placed his faith, but his was a personal knowledge of the witness of the Spirit, his own “earnest-penny” of salvation.
                                                                                                                       —B. M. F.

The Holy Ghost doth plainly show itself; for it becomes a Spirit of adoption within him, the very earnest-penny of salvation, sealing up unto him the favor of God, the pardon of sin, the attaining of life, and by a new, a strange work, persuading him that God is reconciled unto him, and hath accepted him for His child.  As it made him able to take unto him words, and go unto the Lord, craving to be accepted graciously; so it brings him word again from God, that he shall be, yea, that he is, accepted graciously; and answering him so strongly and undoubtedly assures him of being heard, that he makes no more question of it than whether he lives, yea or no. From which assurance of spirit, he grows resolute in his very soul, for the time to come, in all things to please God, and finds a new kind of disposition, enabling him to avoid evil, and do good; so having put his neck under the gentle and easy yoke of Christ Jesus, he finds rest unto his soul; and thus Christ is formed in him, and he is transformed into a new creature.

The Witness of a Believer’s own Spirit

The regenerate man understands himself to be regenerate; as the man that liveth and walketh, that he liveth and walketh.  So St. John tells us plainly:  “We know that we are translated from death unto life” (1 John 3:14).  But how knows he it?  Even by a most infallible knowledge, grounded upon the perceiving of the effects of a spiritual life:  as he knows that he is a living man, and not a carcass, by feeling in himself the manifest effects of this common life.  For in very truth, spiritual life can no more be hidden than natural.  Can that admirable change, that cumbersome combat, that so-far-from-former-times-differing life, be found in a man, and he not know it?  Can a blind men become seeing, and he not know it?  Can a deaf man hear, a lame man go, a sick man become whole, a dead man live, and not know of these alterations in themselves?  It is utterly impossible that such things should be hidden from him in whom they be:  and the taking away of blindness, deafness, dumbness, lameness, death, from the soul, is, to him in whom it is, no less manifest and evident than the removing of these bodily infirmities.  And therefore St. John saith, “I write unto you babes, because you have known the Father” (1 John 2:13):  meaning with a knowledge of acquaintance, whereby they conceive Him to be their Father.  In truth, the Christian man finds in himself something within him sealing him up to life.  He hath an earnest-penny, that makes the bargain sure betwixt the Lord and his soul.
To the Christian man this knowledge of God is so rich and precious a jewel, that he makes more account of it than of a thousand lives.  Wherefore of almost all errors concerning man’s condition, he can with least patience brook their most palpable fancy, that think it impossible to attain a sure knowledge and infallible, that one is the child of God, or knows himself to be God’s by regeneration and adoption.  Take away his life then, take away his being.  The world is worse than a prison and dungeon to him, if the light of this knowledge be taken away.  He can have no quiet in himself, no comfort in anything else, without this knowledge.  He perceives that this is the greatest confirmation of his soul in a holy life, that he knows himself to be begotten again, by the seed of immortality, to a lively hope, and to an immortal inheritance.  This knowledge therefore is so necessary unto him, that he cannot live without:  and hence it is, that he no longer enjoys himself than he retains it.
Now therefore, brethren, be not discouraged from praying for the Spirit of life to breathe upon you, by any cavils or objections of Satan.  Be not made careless of seeking so necessary a thing, by any fond imaginations that he will put into your minds.  Be not diverted from doing this duty, by any worldly business that may come betwixt:  but whatever thou doest, now in thine heart, and when thou comest home, in thy closet, and in the solemnest manner, bow thyself to God, and cry unto Him for the Holy Ghost to regenerate thee.
And O thou blessed Spirit, that art like the wind, and breathest even where Thou listest, breathe into the hearts of some of these that hear me this day, and cause them to be inflamed with a desire of regeneration, and to be encouraged to the begging of it, where as yet it hath not been wrought.

A Few Things Christians Know
 
“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
“We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him” (1 John 5:20).
“We know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us” (1 John 3:24).
“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19).
“We know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments” (1 John 5:2).
“We know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28).
“We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God” (2 Cor. 5:1).
“We know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him” (1 John 3:19).
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14).
“We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).—Selected.

A FRESH MEETING WITH GOD!

By Vance Havner

I have no fancy name for it but the one thing needful is a brand-new experience of God among His people.  I do not care what your favorite name for it may be.  We have named it aplenty, but most of us have never known it.  The filling of the Spirit, full surrender, consecration, the victorious life, perfect love, revival—whatever you call it—most of us don’t have it!
Too much of our orthodoxy is correct and sound but it is like words without tune, statues without songs.  It does not stir the wells of the heart.  It has lost its hallelujah, it is too much like a catechism, not enough like a camp meeting.  We may smile at our spiritual forbears, call some of them primitive and antiquated, but they had a vividness and vitality, a fervor and fire, that makes us look like fireflies beside their flaming torches.
We need a heart-warming like Wesley knew that evening on Aldersgate Street.  We need to find what Fletcher reached when, after wearying all hours of the night seeking peace, his eyes fell upon the verse of Scripture reading, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord” (Psa. 55:22).  We may have it in a motto on the wall but the Word hung up in the house is one thing and the Word hidden in the heart is another.
We need to learn with Frances Ridley Havergal, worn out with heart-searching and wrestling with sin, that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin” (1 John 1:7) is the key that unlocks the gate of bondage and sets the spirit free.
I do not mean that we are to copy their experiences.  For one it may be as cyclonic and tempestuous as Finney’s dramatic meeting with the Lord.  For another it may be as serene as an autumn sunset, as with A. B. Earle when a sweet heavenly peace filled his soul, and a calm childlike trust took possession of his whole being.
We may rise from our knees singing “onward Christian Soldiers” like a camp-meeting Methodist; or we may feel so subdued that we can only whisper, “Abide With Me.”  But—whatever form it takes—we all need a fresh meeting with God!
For one it may mean nights of prayer, not because God is slow but because we are stubborn.  It may mean tears of repentance, for our spiritual eyesight is bad these days and we see better after our eyes are cleared by the saltiness of godly sorrow.  It may mean giving up something that displeases God, or undertaking something that pleases God.
But whatever may be necessary, one man with a glowing experience of the Lord is worth a library full of arguments.
We are God’s witnesses, not His lawyers, and we have been apologetic when we should be apostolic!  People do not usually find God at the end of an argument.  Simon Peter usually comes to Jesus because Andrew went after him with heavenly compassion and holy compulsion.
Call it what you will, we need a brand-new meeting with God.
—Herald of His Coming.