LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
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PREFACE
PREFACE This
book is intended to help every reader of its pages into the immediate enjoyment
of Bible holiness. Its writer is an officer of The Salvation Army who, having a
gracious experience of the things whereof he writes, has been signally used of
God, both in life and testimony, to the sanctifying of the Lord’s people, as
well as in the salvation of sinners. I commend him and what he has here written
down to every lover of God and His kingdom on the earth. I joyfully add that the
perusal of some of the papers which follow has been abundantly blessed to my own
heart, and that I have no doubt but that the Holy Spirit has instructed and
influenced the writer. In
no department of its teaching has The Salvation Army suffered more reproach than
in this—of “Holiness unto the Lord.” Indeed, its teaching, as distinct
from its methods, has, apart from this, been largely welcomed by every section
of the professing Church. It is one of the strange contradictions of modern
Christianity that every church seems to hold so lightly the importance of its
own creed that it extends the right hand of benediction to every other; and thus
there is a tacit understanding nowadays that it does not much matter what you
believe, so long as you profess to believe something. Thank God! we have been in
great measure preserved from this false charity, and from the chaotic
indefiniteness and confusion which inevitably flow from it; and our witness to
entire sanctification has done much to preserve us, for it has aroused
opposition, not merely from the intellectual apologists for existing systems,
but from the thousands whose half-hearted service and unwilling consecration it
has condemned. Because,
the holiness that we contend for is a fighting holiness, a suffering holiness, a
soulsaving holiness; in short, Jesus Christ’s holiness. Any mere “enjoyment
of religion,” or “waiting on God,” or “fullness of blessing,” which
has not immediately and indissolubly joined with it, in every expression of it,
the most unselfish and aggressive passion for the instant rescue of sinners from
their sins, is, in our judgment, a mere caricature of the higher life of
complete union with Christ, which the word of God declares to be the highest
life of all. And
this fact makes it impossible for us to issue even a book like this without a
word of caution to every reader. There are, alas! multitudes of good people who
delight to read and to hear anything about holiness, who frequent holiness
meetings and higher life conventions, and yet, in the course of years,
appear—whatever professions their lips may make—unable to see the need of
separation from the world in so small a matter as the putting away of the
worldly dress of the soberly-elegant, the ease-loving habits learnt in the
wealthy home, or the worldly associations of their family and their circle. For
your soul’s sake, do not read this, or any other holiness book, if you are not
willing to hear in it the voice of God telling you what to leave and what to do
for Him. And when you have read, go at once and, without consulting anybody,
obey. God help you! W.
Bramwell Booth International
Headquarters, London,
E. C. February
7, 1896
INTRODUCTION On
January 9, 1885, at about nine o’clock in the morning, God sanctified my soul.
I was in my own room at the time, but in a few minutes I went out and met a man
and told him what God had done for me. The next morning, I met another friend on
the street and told him the blessed story. He shouted and praised God and urged
me to preach full salvation and confess it everywhere. God used him to encourage
and help me. So the following day I preached on the subject as clearly and
forcibly as I could, and ended with my testimony. God
blessed the word mightily to others, but I think He blessed it most to myself.
That confession put me on record. It cut the bridges down behind me. Three
worlds were now looking at me as one who professed that God had given him a
clean heart. I could not go back now. I had to go forward. God saw that I meant
to be true till death. So two mornings after that, just as I got out of bed and
was reading some of the words of Jesus, He gave me such a blessing as I never
had dreamed a man could have this side of Heaven. It was a heaven of love that
came into my heart. I walked out over Boston Common before breakfast weeping for
joy and praising God. Oh, how I loved! In that hour I knew Jesus and I loved Him
till it seemed my heart would break with love. I loved the sparrows, I loved the
dogs, I loved the horses, I loved the little urchins on the streets, I loved the
strangers who hurried past me, I loved the heathen—I loved the whole world. Do
you want to know what holiness is? It is pure love. Do you want to know what the
baptism of the Holy Ghost is? It is not a mere sentiment. It is not a happy
sensation that passes away in a night. It is a baptism of love that brings every
thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:5); that casts out
all fear (1 God
did all that for me, bless His holy name! Oh,
how I had longed to be pure! Oh, how I had hungered and thirsted for God—the
living God! And He gave me the desire of my heart. He satisfied me—I weigh my
words—He satisfied me! He satisfied me! These
ten years have been wonderful. God has become my Teacher, my Guide, my
Counselor, my All and in All. He
has allowed me to be perplexed and tempted, but it has been for my good. I have
no complaint to make against Him. Sometimes it has seemed that He had left me
alone, but it has been as the mother who stands away from her little child to
teach him to use his own legs that he may walk. He has not suffered me to fall. He
has been with my mouth and helped me to speak of Jesus and His great salvation
in a way to instruct, comfort and save other souls. He has been light to my
darkness, strength to my weakness, wisdom in my foolishness, knowledge in my
ignorance. When
my way has been hedged up and it seemed that no way could be found out of my
temptations and difficulties, He has cut a way through for me, just as He opened
the Red Sea for When
my heart has ached, He has comforted me; when my feet had well-nigh slipped, He
has held me up; when my faith has trembled, He has encouraged me; when I have
been in sore need, He has supplied all my need; when I have been hungry, He has
fed me; when I have thirsted, He has given me living water. Oh,
glory to God! What has He not done for me? What has He not been to me? I
recommend Him to the world. He
has taught me that sin is the only thing that can harm me, and that the only
thing that can profit me in this world is “faith which worketh by love”
(Galatians 5:6). He has taught me to hang upon Jesus by faith for my salvation
from all sin and fear and shame, and to show my love by obeying Him in all
things and by seeking in all ways to lead others to obey Him. I
praise Him! I adore Him! I love Him! My whole being is His for time and
eternity. I am not my own. He can do with me as He pleases for I am His. I know
that what He chooses must work out for my eternal good. He is too wise to make
mistakes and too good to do me evil. I trust Him, I trust Him, I trust Him!
“My expectation is from Him” (Psalm 62:5); not from man, not from myself;
but from Him. He has been with me for ten years, and I know He will never fail
me. During
these ten years God has enabled me to keep a perfect, unbroken purpose to serve
Him with my whole heart. No temptation has swerved that steadfast purpose. No
worldly or ecclesiastical ambition has had an atom of weight to allure me. My
whole heart has cried within me as did Ephraim’s: “What have I to do any
more with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him” (Hosea 14:8). “Holiness
to the Lord” (Exodus 28:36) has been my motto. In fact, it has been the only
motto that could express the deep desire and aspiration of my soul. For
a year and a half at a stretch I have been laid aside from work by bodily
weakness. At one time I should have thought this a cross too heavy to be borne;
but in this, as in all things else, His grace was sufficient. Of
late God has been especially blessing me. My heart pants after Him and, as I
seek Him in fervent, patient, believing prayer and in diligent searching of His
word, He is deepening the work of grace in my soul. S.
L. Brengle
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