Godliness | Page 3

it becomes in the believer a series of
supernatural and spiritual acts, a habit of soul, at once the seed and fruit
of the Divine life-stirring, uniting in itself the characters of penitent
humility, self-renunciation, simple trust, and absolute obedience

grounded in love. These teachers magnify the Divine element in faith.
We look in vain in their writings for any such direction to a penitent as
this, "Believe that you are saved, because, God says so in His Word,"
but rather believe that you are saved when you hear His Spirit crying,
Abba, Father, in your heart.
Many modern teachers fall into the error of treating saving faith as an
unaided intellectual act to be performed, at will, at any time. It is rather
a spiritual act possible only when prompted by the Holy Spirit, who
incites to faith only when He sees true repentance and a hearty
surrender to God. Then the Spirit reveals Christ and assists to grasp
Him. In the refutation of the high predestinarian doctrine that faith is an
irresistible grace sovereignly bestowed upon the elect, there is great
danger of falling into the opposite error, called Pelagianism, which
makes saving faith an exercise which the natural man is competent to
put forth without the help of the Holy Spirit. The real guilt of unbelief
lies in that voluntary indifference toward Christ, and impenitence of
heart, in which the Holy Spirit cannot inspire saving faith.
In our introduction to "Aggressive Christianity," we advertised, in
behalf of the American churches, a universal want--Enthusiasm. In her
brief Exeter-Hall address, Mrs. Booth discloses the source of the supply.
Holiness is the well-spring of enthusiasm. Hence it is not a spring
freshet, but an overflowing river of power in all its possessors, and,
notably in the Salvation Army, bearing the unchurched masses of
England on its bosom. A holy enthusiasm is contagious and conquering.
We cannot touch the people with the icicle of logic; but they will not
fail to bow to the scepter of glowing and joyful love. Few men can
reason; all can feel. Enthusiasm and full salvation, like the Siamese
twins, cannot be separated and live. The error of the modern pulpit is
that of the blacksmith hammering cold steel--a faint impression and
huge labor. The baptism of fire softening our assemblies would lighten
the preacher's toil and multiply its productiveness.
The four addresses on Holiness are hortatory rather than argumentative
or exegetical. They are spiritual cyclones. It is difficult to see how any
Christian could withstand these impassioned appeals to make what
Joseph Cook calls "an affectionate, total, irreversible, eternal,
self-surrender to Jesus Christ, as both Saviour and Lord," in order to
attain that "perfect similarity of feeling with God," wherein evangelical

perfection consists.
It gives me great pleasure to have some humble part in echoing across
the American continent these glowing utterances from the lips of this
modern Deborah, the Christian prophetess raised up by God for the
deliverance of His people from captivity to worldliness and religious
apathy. "Would God that all the Lord's people," men and women, "were
prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!"
"Shall we the Spirit's course restrain, Or quench the heavenly fire? Let
God His messengers ordain, And whom He will inspire! Blow as He
list, the Spirit's choice Of instruments we bless: We will, if Christ be
preached, rejoice, And wish the word success."
DANIEL STEELE.
_Reading, Mass., Nov._ 23, 1883.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
REPENTANCE

CHAPTER II.
SAVING FAITH

CHAPTER III.
CHARITY

CHAPTER IV.
CHARITY AND REBUKE

CHAPTER V.
CHARITY AND CONFLICT

CHAPTER VI.
CHARITY AND LONELINESS

CHAPTER VII.
CONDITIONS OF EFFECTUAL PRAYER

CHAPTER VIII.
THE PERFECT HEART

CHAPTER IX.
HOW TO WORK FOR GOD WITH SUCCESS

CHAPTER X.
ENTHUSIASM AND FULL SALVATION

CHAPTER XI.
HINDRANCES TO HOLINESS

CHAPTER XII.
ADDRESSES ON HOLINESS

CHAPTER I.
REPENTANCE,
And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at band.--MATT.
iii. 2.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.--MATT. iv. 17.
"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly
vision: but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and
throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Qentiles, that they
should repent and torn to God, and do works meet for
repentance."--ACTS xxvi. 19,20.
In the mouths of three witnesses--John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the
Apostle Paul--this word shall be established, namely, that repentance is
an indispensable condition of entering the kingdom of God.
People generally are all at sea oh this subject, as though insisting that
repentance were an arbitrary arrangement on the part of God. I believe
God has made human salvation as easy as the