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della Stella by Fra Angelico for sweetness and love surpasses all of Ms age, while the Christ nestles into her neck and loves, and for a while, before the thorny way is opened to Him, tastes all love of earth." This is the painter of whom it is written that he was wont to say that the practice of art required repose and holy thoughts, and that he who would depict the acts of Christ must learn to live with Christ. This was the man who above all others took captive William Denny's admiration. It was like drawing like.i
II.
Entike Sanctification.
1. There is a sense in which sanctification is entire in re- generation. To the measure of every man's light the surrender to God must be without reserve, and the cleansing of the heart from an evil conscience is as entire as justification is complete. " By one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Though sanctification is in this sense complete in regeneration, in the purpose of God and the experience of the believer, much is left to be accomplished in the nature of the sanctified. The carnalities need to be purged out. Entire sanctification completes the work of regeneration, pervading every part of the renewed nature. The spirit is sanctified wholly ; the reason is filled with the all-pervasive presence of God realized in the consciousness. Every faculty of the mind is not only cleansed from defilement, but in every part there is reflected the mind of God. The soul is sanctified wholly; its desires are holy, its passions clean, its thoughts pure, its impulses God-ward, and its delight is in the will of the Lord. The tugging of the old nature with its evil lusts is over. The body is sanctified wholly; its members become instruments of righteousness; it is a temple of God, cleansed, sanctified, and filled with the glory of His presence. The sancti- fication of the parts is not a separate process. The work is one, and is accomplished in the sanctification of the man. The parts are mentioned to set forth the completeness and entireness of the work of God in redeemed and sanctified man. It is entire, complete, without restriction, and without defect. Every part is
* A. B. Bruce, The Life of William Denny, 19.
52 A PRAYER FOR SANCTITY
cleansed, perfected, and pervaded with the energy of the Divine Presence. The fleshly is eradicated and the spiritual prevails.
^ What you say about the sin attaching to a reserve in the consecration reminds me of the truth on which Benjamin Hellier used to insist, that in the New Testament the only Christian hfe allowable is that of entire sanctification. For those who are stopping short of this there are exhortations, warnings, expostula- tions, invitations, prayers ; but the life there presented to every believer is one of a surrendered will, an obedient heart, a victorious Spirit-filled life in union with Christ, bringing salvation from sin, and leading to steady growth, through increasing knowledge and manifold temptations. This is the true answer to those who ask where the New Testament speaks of a second blessing. Salvation is one blessing, which many Christians, through their own fault or that of their teachers, are not receiving in its completeness.^
2. What the Apostle meant by this threefold division of human nature cannot be determined with absolute confidence. It is possible that he availed himself of a current division of human nature into three parts — spirit, soul, and body ; and that, without at all pronouncing on the truth of this view, he made use of it to express emphatically the whole of man's being; just as we are commanded to love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, although it is not laid down as a fixed truth that man's nature is made up of these four parts.
It is probable, however, that the Apostle meant more than this, and taught us to seek from God not only in general the recovery of our whole being from sin, but also of the particular parts and in the particular order in which they are here mentioned. He does not at all decide whether the spirit, soul, and body are rightly arranged by the philosophers in separate order. But he does teach that there are such parts of human nature, and he gives directions how they should be treated. There is the spirit, by which he means our highest faculties that come nearest to God, the faculties that connect man with the spiritual and the invisible. These might be perverted to pride and unbelief, and lead man into the condemnation of the devil. There is the soul, the seat of the affections and desires that more especially connect man with this lower world. These might be perverted to covetousness, to lust,
^ John Brash : Memorials and Correspondence, 36.
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I THESSALONIANS v. 23 53
to sinful anger, and the other soul passions that corrupt and embitter society. And there is the body, the instrument of man's higher nature, with its own appetites and cravings, which might be perverted to excess and vicious indulgence, and become the tyrant over the highest powers it ought to serve.
From all these evils and dangers, the Apostle fervently prays that the Thessalonians may be preserved ; and there is something in the order in which he arranges his petitions which is instructive. For if the spirit, which is placed first, be preserved, it will tend to preserve the soul ; if the soul be preserved, it will tend to pre- serve the body. The favourable influence might begin above with man's conscience and reason, then descend to his social affections and desires, then govern and regulate his bodily appetites. What the Apostle prays for is, that every man's spirit should be as much in communion with God as the spirit of Jesus Christ ; his soul as full of social affection and unselfish desire ; his body as much the pure and willing instrument of his superior nature in God's service. Then he would be sanctified wholly. All the parts of his being, like the several strings of a harp, would vibrate in perfect unison with each other, and with the master- strain of Christ's example.