Chapter 10

WITNESSES

   The Double Cure not only cleanses the heart from all sin and fills it with perfect love, but also emancipates the tongue. Hence, all who have received it, divinely taught, proclaim its worth and magnify its Author.

   In order that by worthy witnesses the truths of the foregoing pages may be established, we invite the reader to listen to the following testimonies selected from multitudes of others equally as unimpeachable:

Enoch. "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Gen. 5:24.)

Noah. "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." (Gen. 6:9.)

Asa. "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days." (1 Kings 15:14.)

Job. "Hast thou considered my servant Job,.... a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil." (Job 1:8.)

Caleb. "I wholly followed the Lord my God." (Josh. 14:8.)

Hezekiah. "Remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight." (2 Kings 20:3.)

   David. "I am small and despised: yet do not I forget thy precepts. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights." (Ps. 119:141-143.) "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." (Ps. 23:5.)

   Isaiah. "Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar: and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." (Isa. 6:6,7.)

   Habakkuk. "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Hab. 3:17, 18)

   Zacharias and Elisabeth. "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." (Luke 1:6.) "And Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with a loud voice." (Luke 1:41, 42) "Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied." (Luke 1:67.)

   Disciples. "And they were all [women and men, laymen and preachers] filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2:4.)

Stephen. "They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." (Acts 6:5.)

   Cornelius and his company. "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." (Acts 10:44.) "And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning." (Acts 11:15.) "And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:9.)

Philippian converts. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." (Phil. 8:15.)

Paul. "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we have behaved ourselves among you that believe." (1 Thess. 2:10.)

Ephesian believers. "And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." (Acts 19:6)

   The truth that the Double Cure is for us and for all believers as really as it was for men in the olden time, not a favored few, is seen from the following testimonies from believers of different churches and walks in life:

"I profess unto you I am dead unto sin and alive unto God..... He is my indwelling sanctifier." -- Rev. John Fletcher, Episcopalian.

"I was distinctly conscious when I reached it. I was then redeemed by a mighty power and filled with the blessing of perfect love." -- Rev. T. C. Upham, Congregationalist.

   "Suddenly I felt as though a hand omnipotent, not of wrath but of love, were laid upon my brow..... For a few minutes the deep of God's love swallowed me up all its billows rolled over." -- Bishop L. L. Hamline, Methodist.

   "After spending one whole day in fasting and prayer, and continuing my fast until midnight, the place where I was staying was filled with the manifested glory of God. His presence appeared to me not exactly in visible form, but as really as though he had come in person." -- Rev. Jacob Knapp, Baptist Evangelist.

   "I was satisfied that the doctrine of sanctification in this life, and entire sanctification in the sense that it is the privilege of Christians to live without known sin, was a doctrine taught in the Bible, and that abundant means were provided to secure its attainment.

   "He enables me now to rest in Him, and let everything sink in His perfect will with much more readiness than ever before the experience of that winter. It seems to me that I can find God within me in such a sense that I can rest upon Him and be quiet, lay my heart in His hand, and nestle down in His perfect will and have no carefulness or anxiety." -- President C. G. Finney, Presbyterian.

   After making mention of his clear conversion, call to the ministry, and growing conviction of the need of complete cleansing and induement, Rev. Edgar Levy adds: "The blessed baptism came. I seemed filled with all the fullness of God. I wept for joy..... The fountains of my being seemed broken up and my heart was dissolved in gratitude and praise. My soul seemed filled with pulses, every one thrilling and throbbing with such waves of love and rapture that I thought I must die from excess of life..... The sovereign will of God seemed at once so sweet and blessed that I felt lost in the thought that God ruled over me and in me." -- Rev. Edgar Levy, Baptist.

   "Sanctification has saved me from inordinate ambitions. It was not always so. Once I coveted place and power -- an agency, an editorship, or even an Episcopal mitre. But these aspirations became as dead as ashes to me more than a quarter of century ago. It has saved me from the love of money; it has saved me from a querulous disposition, the peculiar besetment of old men, dyspeptic young men and spoiled children, an acrid temper, and has saved me from evil speaking and cynical criticism of my brethren." -- Rev. Asbury Lowrey.

   "Sanctification has saved the writer from all irritability of temper and disposition. Regeneration has saved him from giving vent to it in speech and act, but did not alienate the dark destroying spirit from the heart. Sanctification, glory be to God! has done this blessed interior work. The hot, impatient flash, the quick nettled feeling, the hasty impulse to angry speech, the gunpowder expression of thought and word -- all have been taken away in a moment of time by the blessed Son of God..... I knew that I was sanctified just as fifteen years before I knew I was converted..... The Holy Ghost bore witness clearly, unmistakably and powerfully to His own work, and although months have passed away since that blessed morning, yet the witness of the Holy Ghost to the work has never left me for a moment, and is as clear today as it was then." -- Rev. B. Carradine, M. E. South.

   "Eighteen months, or two years after I was converted, I found many hindrances, especially a very bad temper. My circumstances in previous life was very good, and it seemed to please God in order to give me what I now have to take away everything. Glory! if it were not for my poverty I should not be where I now am. I began to feel an aching void in my soul. Wanted something better. Glory to God! I have it. Hallelujah! I was like a ragged, dirty beggar, forlorn and friendless. Up on the hill there is a great mansion, very bright marble walls, richly carved doors, hanging tapestry, all lighted up. I have day after day been to the kitchen door and took the crumbs they gave me. I had a theological diploma, but never understood holiness, took notes, studied, heard Bro. Pickett and Knapp preach, found holiness was not living so you can not sin, but where you won't want to sin. I gave up all, went into the great mansion, sat at the table, and am eating the best there is for me." -- A Baptist preacher.

"It settled upon me deeper and deeper, sweeter and sweeter, till I seemed to be 'filled with all the fullness of God.' I was ineffably satisfied." -- Dr. J. O. Peck.

   "I seemed to sink into the will of God. I hardly knew how, but oh, such a flood of glory as covered me! My whole being seemed permeated with divine power and joy unspeakable." -- Luke Woodard, Quaker.

   "Upon the promise I ventured with an act of appropriating faith. For several hours I clung by naked faith. Suddenly I became conscious of a mysterious power exerting itself upon my sensibilities. My physical sensations, though not of a nervous temperament, in good health, alone and calm, were indescribable; as if an electric current were passing through my body with painless shocks, melting my whole being into a fiery stream of love.

   "I am conscious of errors, grievances, infirmities and defects, which though consistent with perfect love and loyalty to God, need and by faith receive, every moment, the merit of Christ's death." -- Rev. Daniel Steele, Methodist.

   "First I was shown that 'the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin,' and then it was made plain to me that He who had thus cleansed had power to keep me clean; so I just utterly yielded myself to Him and utterly trusted Him to keep me..... He has brought me into the highway of holiness, up which I trust every day to progress, continually pressing forward, led by the Spirt of God." -- Frances Ridley Havergal, Episcopalian.

   Referring to some ladies who earnestly prayed that he might enter into this experience, Mr. Moody says: "I did not like it at first, but I got to thinking it over, and after a little time I began to feel a desire to have what they were praying for. The result was that at the end of three months God sent this blessing upon me. I would not for all the world go back to where I was before. Since then I have never lost the assurance that I am walking in communion with God, and I have a joy in His service that sustains me and makes it easy work.

I have done three times the work I did before, and it gets better and better every year." -- D. L. Moody, Congregationalist.

   "I was born in 1833, born again in 1849; began to preach in 1853; and was sanctified in 1868. During the fifteen years of my unsanctified ministerial life, feeling myself committed, at least nominally, to the doctrine of entire sanctification, I always recognized myself in the attitude of a seeker, and felt it my duty to teach and defend the doctrine, as well as seek the experience pursuant to my ordination vows. But how difficult to preach in advance of my experience. I fluctuated, strove hard to reason it out -- now Zinzendorfian, now Pelagian, and again Wesleyan. Floods of Scripture on full salvation I knew I had never experienced. I often labored to explain them away, then conscious of the futility of my efforts, sank down under deep conviction for the blessing which would bring me into harmony with the Word of God. After nineteen years in the wilderness of inbred sin, seventeen years ago by simple faith I stepped into the Jordan. An unseen hand caught the flood. I found the Jordan no obstruction to those who have faith. That very hour I entered the land of corn and wine. -- Rev. W. B. Godbey, M E. South, author of Christian Perfection, Victory, etc.

   "I had an inexpressible satisfaction and joy in suffering and being a prisoner. The confinement of my body made me better relish the freedom of my mind. The stones of my prison looked in my eyes like rubies; I esteemed them more than all the gaudy brilliants of a vain world. My heart was full of that joy which Thou givest to them that love Thee in the midst of their greatest crosses." -- Madame Guyon, Roman Catholic.

The following facts are true of each of the witnesses above mentioned:

   They had, in the first place, a definite experience of conversion. After this, with no backsliding, they found themselves just as clearly convicted for complete cleansing and induement as formerly for pardon. They sought this definitely and earnestly. They consecrated all fully and forever to Jesus. They then trusted Him to fulfill His promise and effect the Double Cure. God answered and made them just as conscious that the Holy Spirit fully sanctified as that Jesus freely forgave them. They all became witnesses to His power to fully save. Through this new experience they each, like the apostles at Pentecost, became equipped as never before for service, and have since shone with increasing brightness; some in this world, others translated to the brighter constellation above.

Reader, God is no respecter of persons, and provided the Double Cure not only for these witnesses but for you and for all that believe on Jesus. (John 17:20, 21.)