It may well be doubted if any question has given more trouble to Methodist theologians or awakened more diverse responses than this —precisely what Christian perfection is. They have answered it in a great variety of ways.

John Wesley, in his Plain Account (pp. 61, 62, 167), says: “Christian perfection is that love of God and our neighbor which implies deliverance from all sin;’’ “the loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; ” “it is ‘perfect love.’ This is the essence of it. Its properties or inseparable fruits are rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks.” In Sermon XL he says: “Christian perfection . . . is only another term for holiness. They are two names for the same thing. Thus, every one that is holy is, in the Scripture sense, perfect. . . . A Christian is so far perfect as not to commit sin. This is the glorious privilege of every Christian; yea, though he be but a babe in Christ. But it is only of those who are strong in the Lord ‘and have overcome the wicked one,’ or rather of those who ‘have known him that is from the beginning,’ that it can be affirmed they are in such a sense perfect, as, secondly, to be freed from evil thoughts and evil tempers.” In one of his letters (ccxxxix), dated 1770, he writes: “I am in doubt whether there be any soul clothed with flesh and blood which enjoys every right temper. . . . Some wrong temper, at least, in a small degree, almost necessarily follows from wrong judgment.” In Sermon LXXXI,‘“ On Perfection,” published in 1785, he says: ‘“This salvation from sin, from all sin, is another description of perfection. .. It [a wrong judgment] will perfectly well consist with salvation from sin, according to that definition of sin which I apprehend to be the scriptural definition of it — a voluntary transgression of a known law.”” In Sermon LXXXVIII, “On Patience,” published in 1784, he says: “The apostle seems to mean by this expression, τέλειοι [ perfect], ye shall be wholly delivered from every evil work, from every evil word, from every sinful thought, yea, from every evil desire, passion, temper, from all inbred corruption, from all remains of the carnal mind.’’ In a letter to “a pious and sensible woman,” in 1769, he writes (Journal, vol. ii, p. 309): “ By Christian perfection I mean having all the mind that was in Christ, . . . walking uniformly as Christ walked.” In a letter (cccli) to another person, in 1762, he writes: “I know no persons living who are so deeply conscious of their needing Christ, both as prophet, priest, and king, as those who believe themselves, and whom I believe, to be cleansed from all sin; I mean from all pride, anger, evil desire, idolatry, and unbelief. These very persons feel more than ever their own ignorance, littleness of grace, coming short of the full mind that was in Christ, and walking less accurately than they might have done after their divine pattern.”’ In a letter to Joseph Benson, in 1770, he calls sanctification ‘“‘a recovery of the whole image of God.” Also in his works, vol. v, p. 35, he speaks of it as “a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity, a recovery of the divine nature.” In his sermon (LXVII) on “The End of Christ’s Coming,” he says: “Here, then, we see, in the clearest, strongest light, what is real religion: a restoration of man, by him that bruises the serpent’s head, to all that the old serpent deprived him of; a restoration, not only to the favor, but likewise to the image of God, implying, not barely deliverance from sin, but the being filled with the fullness of God. Nothing short of this is Christian religion.” To another correspondent (Mrs. Maitland) he writes: “But is there no sin in those who are perfect in love?’ I believe not.” To his brother Charles he writes (Jackson’s Life of Charles Wesley, vol. ii, p. 209): “I do not contend for the term ‘sinless,’ though I do not object against it,” as, of course, he could not, since freedom from all sin is the same as sinessness, and the whole significance of it turns on what is meant by sin.

John Fletcher, in his Last Check to Antinomianism, gives the name “perfection” to “the maturity of grace peculiar to established believers under their respective dispensations.” ‘‘By ‘Christian perfection,” he continues, “we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces which compose the Christian character in the Church militant.’ ‘‘We frequently use, as St. John, the phrase ‘perfect love’ instead of the word ‘perfection;’ understanding by it the pure love of God, shed abroad in the heart of established believers by the Holy Ghost.” ‘As we shall be judged by this ‘law of liberty,’ we maintain not only that it may, but also that it must, be kept.” ‘So long as they [established believers] fulfill ‘the law of liberty’ by pure love they do not sin according to the Gospel; because, evangelically speaking, ‘sin is the transgression,’ and ‘love is the fulfilling,’ of that law. ... Of consequence, an evangelically sinless perfection is daily experienced.”

Dr. Adam Clarke says (Christian Theology, pp. 182, 183): “This perfection is the restoration of man to the state of holiness from which he fell, by creating him anew in Christ Jesus and restoring to him that image and likeness of God which he has lost. A higher meaning than this it cannot have; a lower meaning it must not have. God made man in that degree of perfection which was pleasing to his own infinite wisdom and goodness. Sin defiled this divine image; Jesus came to restore it. Sin must have no triumph; and the Redeemer of mankind must have his glory. But if man be not perfectly saved from all sin, sin does triumph and Satan exult.... All sin ... is the work of the devil, and he, Jesus, came to destroy the work of the devil; and as all unrighteousness is sin, so his blood cleanseth from all sin, because it cleanseth from all unrighteousness.”

Richard Watson, in his Institutes (vol. ii, pp. 450, 453, 455), treating of "entire sanctification, or the perfected holiness of believers,” speaks of it as “our complete deliverance from all spiritual pollution, all inward depravation of the heart,” “deliverance from all inward and outward sin,” “perfect freedom from sin.”

Coming to some of the more modern writers, we find Dr. George Peck, in his Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection (p. 65), holding that Christian perfection, or entire sanctification, does not imply “a perfect fulfillment of the requirements of the Adamic law,” but that we are saved from “all violations of the requirements of the law of love.”

Bishop Foster, in the revised edition of his Christian Purity (p. 128), speaking of the soul in "consummated holiness” or entire sanctification, says: "The propensities will no longer rebelliously strive with the conscience, no longer have undue power, like a frenzied patient, but, remaining and becoming restored to their right condition, will ask only their normal indulgence and exercise; as was their primeval design, will awaken only appropriate desires and lead to their appropriate effects. Just that, and no more.” In his more recent Philosophy of Christian Experience he says: "An ethically perfect soul is one which perfectly knows its law and perfectly obeys it; a soul whose intellect unerringly discerns between things which ought to be and those which ought not to be; a soul delicately sensitive to slightest approach of evil or wrong... It is perfectly obvious that this ideal has never been reached by any but one man on the earth. It was reached by Jesus of Nazareth. . . . The impossible ideal is not what is required by the eternal ethical law. That which is required of the human soul is the nearest approach possible, . . . possible not to itself alone by its own unaided power, but as nearly as possible with all available helps at its command” (pp. 139, 140). "Average Christian experience is not unalloyed. It is not the experience of an ideally perfect soul. There are none such on earth, and never will be” (p. 151). “By common consent a damage has come to the soul by sin that in some respects is irreparable while it remains in the body” (p. 159). “As a principle governing the life, we are bold to say, love may and should abide moment by moment and without alloy. That is all God wants; that is moral perfection” (p. 162).

Bishop Merrill, in his Aspects of Christian Experience, says: “Some hold that redemption will lift us to the height from which he [man] fell; but that consummation will require resurrection power. . . . None of us look for ‘ sinless perfection ’ in this life. . . . While we may live in such intimate companionship with the Holy One that we shall not willfully commit sin, we shall be so encompassed with the limitations of our understanding and the infirmities of our being that the word ‘sinless’ will not apply to our highest possible development” (pp. 227, 228). ‘So long as we live we will be doing things that ought not to be done and leaving undone things that ought to be done. Nor will all our mistakes be innocent. Many of them will or may be harmful to ourselves and others. In some we shall be blameworthy. More attention, warmer love, less selfishness — all possible — would have saved the wrong inflicted. We shall, therefore, always need forgiveness ” (pp. 229, 230). ‘“ Purity is not perfection” (p. 234). ‘‘Maturity, which is the same thing as perfection, comes from that development of the inward life of the soul which the Scriptures call growth”’ (p. 235).

Dr. Daniel Curry said, in a carefully prepared essay, read at the New York Preachers’ Meeting and published in The Christian Advocate, “Christian maturity, manhood, ripeness, is the proper and legitimate sense of the New Testament word ‘ perfection.’ ”

Dr. Daniel Steele, in Love Enthroned, makes the following definitions: “Evangelical perfection, which is nothing but inward sincerity and uprightness of heart toward God” (p. 12). “Perfect love, by which we mean love in a degree commensurate with the utmost capacity of the soul" (p. 39). In Milestone Papers (p. 127) he says: ‘ All that I am required to do is to love God with the full measure of my present powers, crippled and dwarfed by original and actual sin. When I do this I am perfect in love in the evangelical sense.”

Dr. L. T. Townsend, in his Elements of General and Christian Theology (p. 66), says that Christians will not have attained perfection “until no experience, and no discipline, and no temptation, and no trial, and nothing they can do for themselves, and nothing God can do for them shall be able to make them answer any more perfectly than they now do the end for which God created them. When this condition is reached they are relatively as perfect as their Father who is in heaven; for, morally, he can do or be no better.”

Dr. Miner Raymond, in the second volume of his Systematic Theology, after observing that “though entire sanctification is salvation from inbred sin and is, in a sense, completed salvation, it is not salvation from all of the inherited effects of the first transgression” (p. 381), and speaking of it as ‘“maturity in Christian grace” (p. 375), further says: “We do not attempt what we regard as impossible, namely, a definite designation of that in which Christian perfection consists” (p. 383). Referring to Mr. Wesley’s definition of it as perfect love, he remarks: ‘As love is a variable quantity, as man’s might, mind, and strength, or, in other words, his ability to love depends upon the extent and correctness of his antecedent knowledge, as we see it, Mr. Wesley’s definition tells us where to find perfection, but does not give us a knowledge of what it is. Should it be said, as it sometimes is, that a man’s love is perfect when he does his best, when he loves God all he can love in his present condition, we reply, This dodges the difficulty; it does not remove or solve it; it makes perfection consist of a series of acts, and not at all in a condition or status of the mind. . . . Simply doing one’s best, then, whatever that best may be, is not Christian perfection” (pp. 383, 384).

Dr. D. D. Whedon, in his article in the Bibliotheca Sacra (April, 1862) on the “ Doctrines of Methodism,”’ says that Christian perfection. is “a state in which all the normal qualities of the Christian are permanently, or with more or less continuity, possessed in the proper completeness.” Twelve years later, defending his teachings upon the subject with great deliberateness in the Methodist Quarterly Review, he calls sanctification “such a measure of power over sin as holds us, with more or less of continuity, in that same perfect fullness of divine approbation as rested upon us when justification first pronounced us through Christ perfectly innocent of sin” (October, 1874, p. 667).

Dr. John Miley, the latest authority, in the second volume of his Systematic Theology, says: “It is the definite work of entire sanctification to complete the subjective purification. .. . But the perfection or maturity of the Christian graces is not an immediate product of the subjective purification” (p. 357). ‘“Sanctification, whether in part or in whole, is in the measure of the incoming and power of the Holy Spirit. It is entire when, through his presence and power, the evil tendencies are subdued and the dominance of the spiritual life is complete’ (p. 365). “Christian perfection is, therefore, not a childhood attainment. . . . It belongs to adult believers” (p. 376).

Here, taken from a dozen standard authors, is certainly a large variety of forms of expression, which might be vastly increased by quotations from others of less prominence and ability. The seeker for truth cannot complain that he is shut up to one set of phrases or even ideas. Indeed, it will not be surprising if, as he meditates, he is thrown into no little perplexity. For he is told, on the one hand, that Christian perfection is the restoration of the likeness of God lost at the fall, a restoration of all the powers and propensities of the soul to their normal or primitive condition; while, on the other hand, he is told that the effects of the first transgression are not to be removed at present, the damage is not wholly repaired, the works of the devil in man are not destroyed in this life. He is told by one that he is perfect if he loves God with all his present powers, whatever these may be — in other words, if he is sincere and does the best he can; but another assures him with equal positiveness that this cannot be called perfection. One tells him only he is perfect who has got where nothing can make him any better; but another is quite confident that this ethical or moral perfection is an impossible ideal not required by ethical law. Several give him the vague, indefinite word “maturity,” or fullness of growth, as the proper synonym for “perfection;” but a still larger number he finds insisting that, so far from reaching fullness or completeness of growth when he gets to be perfect, it is only then that he begins to grow with the most rapidity, or, in the language of the catechism, “They should still grow in knowledge and in grace, and improve faster than before.” A good many inform him that it is the fulfilling of the law, without explaining what law they mean or what the law requires; they assert that it is deliverance from sin, but do not think it necessary to mention what they mean by sin; they declare that it is loving God with all the heart, might, mind, and strength, that is, with all the powers, but quite omit to say whether they mean all our present impaired powers or all the powers of the perfect man. Some say it is deliverance from sin, in the sense of voluntary transgression of the known law, and then, in the next breath, quietly declare that it is deliverance from all original sin or depravity of heart. The articles of religion say nothing whatever about it, although it is declared on all sides to be the chief and most distinctive doctrine of Methodism. And the standard catechism contents itself with the noncommittal truism that Christian perfection consists “in perfect love.”

It seems to us as plain as day that, instead of clearness or certainty of doctrine, here is a monumental muddle. Yet there are plenty who assure us with the utmost emphasis that the Methodist Church is a unit in her belief on this matter, and that no departure from the standards can possibly be allowed or is compatible with honesty in any Methodist preacher. The simple fact is — and no progress can be made until it is more generally understood and more firmly held in mind than it has been hitherto — that there are various kinds of perfection. The word is taken in different senses by the biblical writers, as well as by those of recent times, and sharp, close, careful discriminations are absolutely needful.

The most general sense of the word as used in the Bible is mature, established, adult. Noah was called “a righteous man, and perfect [margin, ‘blameless’] in his generations” (Gen. vi, 9). Job was called “a perfect and an upright man” (Job 1, 8; ii, 3). "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright” (Psalm xxxvii, 37). “For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it” (Prov. ii, 21). The collocation of the two words, thus put in apposition in these and other Old Testament passages, sufficiently shows that “perfect” was taken in no exact signification, but was merely used to indicate that the man had an established character for moral excellence and integrity. Similarly, in the New Testament this is about the usual meaning, as one can see by consulting the contents of the principal passages. “That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. iil, 17). “Admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ” (Col. i, 28). “For we rejoice, when we are weak, and ye are strong: this we also pray for, even your perfecting. . . . Be perfected; be comforted; be of the same mind; live in peace” (2 Cor. xii,.9, 11). Peter shows that he takes it thus loosely by saying, “The God of all grace... shall himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you” (1 Peter v, 10). Similarly Paul, in 1 Cor. ii, 6: “We speak wisdom among the perfect.” Dr. Whedon’s comment is, “The adult — for such is the meaning of the word ‘perfect’ — in Christ, and who are, therefore, called spiritual (verse 15), and who have attained a higher Christian life.’ The same commentator, in his note on I Cor. iii, 1, says, “'Babe’ implies childhood; ‘perfect ’ simply implies adulthood. ... A perfect man in Christ Jesus is simply an adult man in Christ Jesus,” which, indeed, the whole connection sufficiently shows. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews uses the word for adulthood in v, 14, vi, 1, which read: “Solid food is for full-grown [margin, ‘perfect ’] men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. Wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ, and press on unto perfection [margin, ‘full growth’].” This is probably Paul’s meaning in Phil. iii, 15: “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” Alford defines the word “perfect,” here as “mature in Christian life;” Conybeare renders it, “ripe in understanding;” and Wesley says, “fit for the race, strong in faith.”

It will be at once evident that this loose, vague, and wholly inexact meaning of the term can be of no value in theology. It is a term for the people, but not for thinkers. It has no definite bounds. There is no point where it can be said to begin, no point where it can be said to end. Just when is maturity reached? Just what does maturity cover? This, at least, and perhaps this alone, is certain — it cannot be found near the beginning of the Christian life, because thoroughly developed powers are implied, as well as large experience and a process of growth involving considerable time. The babe does not jump into manhood in a night. It takes practice to make perfect in this sense. And nothing but practice can do it in matters that require our cooperation and are accomplished by voluntary action. Only that which is purely passive can be made perfect in a moment. He who is called a perfect workman at a job must have done that particular thing a great many times before, for it is not possible to do it as well in the earlier stages as in the later. His mind and members have learned their obedience by the things which they have suffered — in other words, have become perfect through suffering, perfect through practice, which is the only way. And since to live as a Christian is to practice the precepts of Christ, to imitate the example he set in holy living, it is by the persevering practice of holy living that we may and must reach this kind of perfection.

So much would seem to be plain. But beyond this fact that time is required for ripening, the word ‘“maturity” does not tell us much or convey any precise information. It is only very roughly and partially applicable to Christian experience. For fruit when it gets ripe begins to decay, and children when they are grown up stop growing; whereas in a normal Christian experience there is neither decay nor stopping. When we are told that Christian perfection is maturity we are left entirely in the dark as to most of the fundamental questions that surround the subject; we are told nothing as to its relation to law or to depravity or to love. Some knowledge, of course, is included, and some purity; but how much? The word itself gives no hint, and people may — nay, indeed, they must — use it as only a vague descriptive, sufficiently expressive to do service in common religious talk, along with such words as “sincere,” “ faithful,” “honorable,” “conscientious,” ‘ high-principled,” “exemplary,” and the like, but not suitable for close theological discussion.

It is true that John Fletcher adopts it as the principal word in his definition of Christian perfection, dwelling upon it very fondly and repeatedly, as though it were entirely satisfactory and sufficiently explicit. It is also true that Bishop Merrill, Dr. Curry, and Dr. Miley, as noted above, and many others, have followed him in this. But we can but think that in doing so they have simply furnished another illustration of what is so very common in all these writings, and what is fitly characterized by Dr. Raymond as “dodging the difficulty,” instead of removing or solving it. A person may be rightly regarded by all around him as a mature, established believer, a full-grown Christian instead of a babe, might be so set down in any catalogue, and yet neither by others nor by himself nor by God be considered as either free from all depravity or even able to live a single month without more or less of sin.

Leaving, then, this sense of the word “ perfect” as not concerning us much in these pages, we turn to the two other senses, each of them of high theological value, capable of exact, clear-cut definition, but very different in their force. It has a lower and a higher meaning. There is a relative or comparative perfection, and there is a complete or positive perfection.

He is relatively perfect who is delivered from all sin, “sin” being taken, of course, as defined in chapter second. He is delivered from that which grieves the Spirit, defiles the conscience, and breaks the communion with God. He has no guilt or blameworthiness; he is free from condemnation; his duties are all done; he has made the divine will, so far as known, his own; he fulfills all the law which at present is binding upon him and, hence, may be called, in a very intelligible and wholly proper sense, sinless. It is a perfection which pertains to every child of God once at least in his life — that is, at the moment when he becomes a child. For it is universally agreed, we think, that a person cannot have his sins forgiven and be adopted into the divine family without making a surrender that is fully commensurate with his knowledge, without giving himself up to God the best he knows how. His consecration must be complete so far as light is granted him. If anything is willfully kept back, if there is any conscious disloyalty in his heart, he will not be accepted. He must be thoroughly willing to do everything that God bids, and, so far as it is a present bidding, he must immediately do it. This is the invariable condition of justification. Nothing less than this would be honorable for God or good for man. The Deity cannot descend to dicker, cannot compromise, cannot take less than all. The young convert, then, is in full and perfect favor with his new-found Father, and retains this undiminished sense of approbation so long as he presses steadily on, answering promptly and completely to every accession of light.

The perfection here described is called relative because it has strict relation to knowledge — that is, to the knowledge of God’s law or will and what its requirements concerning us are. This knowledge may be little or large. In the case of most young converts it is probably very small. This does not matter so far as the full performance of present duty is concerned, for what they do not know and cannot now know is not duty. Thorough loyalty and the faithful carrying out of all orders received meet all demands. Such a one will, of course, love God with all his present powers, for this also is a part of present duty and is the soul’s sufficient prompter of complete obedience. He will love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, to the full extent of which he is now capable. His affections will not be divided, his allegiance will be unshared by any-thing below the supreme throne. All selfishness or evil that is discerned or recognized to be such by our poorly developed powers, injured by our inheritance from Adam and through sinful ancestors, as well as by our personal transgressions, will be resolutely refrained from. Nothing consciously contrary to love will be cherished. All that we ought to do and nothing that we ought not to do will be done. And we shall be all that we ought and nothing that we ought not.

Such a man is perfect in the lower sense. And there is certainly a propriety in styling perfect him who has such power from above as that he maintains a state of undiminished fullness of acceptance with God, a state of gracious guiltlessness, or freedom from condemnation. He has attained the normal completeness of his class or kind; the normal qualities of the normal Christian are possessed by him in proper fullness.

It will not be difficult to see how very great must be the difference between this man, who is perfect in a merely relative or comparative sense, and one who is perfect in a complete or positive sense. The latter is delivered, not merely from all sin, but from all depravity, which is another thing altogether. He is delivered, not merely from such selfishness as his weakened powers may be able to discern, but from all selfishness of every sort, as the infinitely wise God sees it. His love is not simply with the enfeebled powers which he may happen to have just now, as he is, battered and bruised more or less by sin, but with powers fitted to fulfill completely the object for which he was created. Such a one has recovered the whole image of God, to use Wesley’s language, his soul has been restored to its primitive health and original purity, he has all the mind that was in Christ, and he walks uniformly as Christ walked. In the words of Bishop Foster already quoted, “The propensities will no longer rebelliously strive with the conscience, no longer have undue power, like a frenzied patient, but, remaining and becoming restored to their right condition, will ask only their normal indulgence and exercise.”

When will this be, and where? Not now or here, but in another world than this, when we shall have laid aside these enfeebled and enfeebling bodies which compel us to err. “This, we believe, is the practically unanimous opinion of Christian thinkers; but they have so many different ways of expressing it that their agreement is not always understood to be as general as it is. John Wesley is particularly strong in his assertions about this, as may be seen by anyone who reads the Plain Account. He says: “I do not expect to be freed from actual mistakes till this mortal puts on immortality. I believe this is to be a natural consequence of the soul’s dwelling in flesh and blood. For we cannot now think at all but by the mediation of those bodily organs which have suffered equally, with the rest of our frame. And, hence, we cannot avoid sometimes thinking wrong, till this corruptible shall have put on incorruption” (p. 63). “ A mistake in opinion may occasion a mistake in practice. Every such mistake is a transgression of the perfect law’’ (p. 64). “I believe there is no such perfection in this life as excludes these involuntary transgressions, which I apprehend to be naturally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable from mortality’ (p. 67). “It is as natural for a man to mistake as to breathe, and he can no more live without the one than the other; consequently no man is able to perform the service which the Adamic law requires. And no man is obliged to perform it” (p.108). “Even these souls dwell in a shattered body and are so pressed down thereby that they cannot always exert themselves as they would by thinking, speaking, and acting precisely right. For want of better bodily organs they must at times think, speak, or act wrong, not, indeed, through a defect of love, but through a defect of knowledge” (p. 116). He also says, near the close of his sermon on “ The End of Christ’s Coming (Sermons, vol. ii, p. 73): “The Son: of God does not destroy the whole work of the devil in man as long as he remains in this life. He does not yet destroy bodily weakness, sickness, pain, and a thousand infirmities incident to flesh and blood. He does not destroy all that weakness of understanding which is the natural consequence of the soul’s dwelling in a corruptible body. . . . He intrusts us with only an exceedingly small share of knowledge, lest our knowledge should interfere with our humility and we should again affect to be as gods.”

This is very explicit and very well put. We do not know that anyone is disposed to object to it. We think the best writers of our own day are in full accord with these ideas. Dr. Miner Raymond, in his Systematic Theology (vol ii, pp. 381-383), has stated the matter very clearly, and may stand as a fair representative of many. He says: “Entire sanctification ... is not salvation from all the inherited effects of the first transgression; it is a complete salvation, but not complete in the sense of being a full restoration to original righteousness. . . . The inherited effects of the fall, as to man’s physical nature, will not be entirely removed until the resurrection from the dead; nor will all of the inherited effects of the fall as to man’s intellectual nature be entirely removed until the saint is glorified in heaven; and as man’s moral and religious natures are conditioned directly upon his physical and intellectual natures, and indirectly upon his earthly surroundings, it is reasonable to infer that some traces of the inherited results of the first sin will remain in these latter natures till man is released from the conditions and limitations of his earthly state and is, body, soul, and spirit, prepared for and admitted to his heavenly estate. . . . Traces of the fall remain in man’s physical, intellectual, moral, and religious natures till glorification in heaven removes them.” Dr. Whedon similarly says, “Our inherent depravity is not entirely removed by regeneration until the regeneration is completed at the resurrection ” (Statements: Theological and Critical, p. 320).

All this being true — since for want of better bodily organs we must more or less of the time think, speak, or act wrong, since we cannot perfectly keep the moral law, which has not been lowered a particle as a standard of right since first given to Adam, since depravity, or that disordered condition of our propensities and powers entailed upon humanity by the fall, is not to be removed this side the grave, while it is quite possible for us and an ever present duty to be kept from sinning — the necessity for careful discrimination in our statements and professions must be evident to all. The lack of the former has brought almost all the writers on this theme into more or less violent conflict with themselves. The lack of the latter has brought into disgust with intelligent people a doctrine which, rightly set forth, is one of the chief glories of our Church.

The two questions, "May believers be kept in this life from the commission of sin?" and “May believers be delivered in this life from all depravity?” should never be confounded. To the former the answer is, “Yes;” to the latter, “No.” If these two kinds of perfection — the lower and the higher; the one up to present light, and the other up to all possible light; the one a service of God with our dwarfed, crippled powers, whatever at any moment they may be, with little or no maturity, little or no knowledge, and the other with fully developed powers and complete maturity and absolute Christlikeness of life — had been in the past century of discussion kept apart, most of the discussion would have been forestalled and prevented. But as neither Wesley nor Fletcher did it, it is not so much to be wondered at that their followers of smaller caliber failed to do it.

John Wesley, speaking of those who exemplify Christian perfection, who “rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks,” “whose souls are continually streaming up to God in holy joy, prayer, and praise,” says, “Even these souls . . . must at times think, speak, or act wrong; not, indeed, through a defect of love, but through a defect of knowledge’’ (Plain Account, p. 116); in other words, the perfect are saved from sin, but not from depravity. And then, a few pages further on, speaking of some who did things which, tried by the highest, most mature standards of humility, temperance, gentleness, and resignation, must be set down as wrong, but which certainly might be done innocently by those less mature, he says, “You have not what I call perfection” (p. 132). Plainly, here the being saved from absolutely all transgressions is not discriminated from the being saved only from conscious intentional transgressions. The meaning to do right is confounded with the actual doing of the right. Some things which pertain, strictly, only to those who are perfect in the higher sense are carried over and unfairly demanded of those who are perfect in the lower sense and who, failing to do them, are summarily declared not to be perfect at all. The perfection of loyalty to God, which every young convert has and every one who is not a young convert may attain by a leap at once, is inextricably mixed up with the perfection of great ripeness of character and judgment, which a babe in Christ cannot have and which must be attained gradually by growth.

If the distinction between these two kinds of perfection had been observed the perpetual wrangle which breaks out ever and anon as to where to set the standard would be wholly obviated. They who set it very high and they who set it very low have both been bitterly complained about, and not without reason. They were both wrong and both right, because there are properly two standards. They who held to the higher one made assertions about it only true of the lower one; and they who set forth the lower one as correct made assertions about that which could be made in strict accuracy only of the higher. In the higher sense, Christ alone is the standard of perfection; and he who has any lower standard than Christ to aim at is sure to go astray or, at least, to make small progress and imbibe erroneous ideas. He will not be likely to realize the normal possibilities of humanity. In the lower sense, perfect sincerity or purity of intention, thorough goodness of will, is the standard; and he who continually comes up to this lives happily and puts to shame a very large proportion of the Church members. It is a standard so much higher than that commonly reached by those who pass for Christians that there is much excuse for people who do not look into matters deeply for supposing it to be as high a standard as is needed.

We have sought in vain for names simple, distinctive, convenient, adequately expressive, and perfectly satisfactory, wherewith to designate these two kinds of perfection, which, in a general way, we have termed lower and higher. Some adopt for the former the term “evangelical perfection,” calling the latter “legal perfection.” But these terms we do not like, because of their manifest ambiguity and erroneous implications. All kinds of perfection attainable by man since the fall are under evangelical or gospel provisions, are the fruits of the atonement, and are reached and held only in humble dependence on Christ; they have, therefore, a right to the name “evangelical,” and would be misrepresented by being dubbed “legal,” although, of course, some law in all cases whatsoever is understood to be fulfilled. “Relative” and “absolute,” although applicable in an important sense, would not quite do; because in another important sense all human perfection is always relative and looks toward an indefinite development in the knowledge and likeness of God, and the only ideally absolute or absolutely ideal perfection belongs, of course, exclusively to God. “Sinless perfection” would very strictly describe what we have called “lower perfection,” because it is, in an accurate sense, deliverance from all sin; but the word “sinless” has got into bad odor and would be sure to be misunderstood. Moreover, it has no corresponding term implying deliverance from all depravity. “Moral perfection,” “Christian perfection,’ and “ human perfection” are also phrases too comprehensive and ambiguous to be of much avail. “Temporal, or earthly, perfection” and ‘“eternal, or resurrectional, perfection”’ might possibly answer, as indicating, on the one hand, that which is possible here in this world, and, on the other, that which can only be attained in heaven after the natural body is exchanged for the spiritual. But the words are awkward and could not be brought into general use.

In short, no words discovered seem to be just the thing. Bishop Jesse T. Peck, in his Central Idea of Christianity (pp. 56-58), speaks of “two kinds of perfection, one in character, another in development ;” adding that development “ must go on in an increased ratio forever,” while “perfection in character must be secured in this life.” Bishop Ezekiel Hopkins, of the Church of England, also says, “There is a twofold perfection, a perfection of the work, and that of the workman.” But neither of these bishops has enriched us with terms that will bear close scrutiny. Perhaps none such can be found. But the difficulty, if it cannot be obviated, may be in part evaded, we would suggest, by speaking more of the perfect Christian than of Christian perfection; and the perfect Christian may easily be treated of under two heads, “the ideal Christian’’ and “the loyal Christian,” the first being wholly Christlike, and the second simply faithful to his present light, and, hence, allowing for all grades of knowledge or goodness, his perfection being liable to have a very limited and imperfect character.

Another way of evading the difficulty is to drop out, as much as possible in ordinary speech, the troublesome word “perfection,” and speak simply of freedom or deliverance from all sin, on the one hand and freedom or deliverance from all depravity, on the other. But in this case it would often be necessary for perfect clearness, in view of the history of the discussion, to expressly exclude any reference to a recognition of so-called “original sin,’’ and to state that deliverance from sin means the acquirement of power perfectly to resist all temptation, and so with absolute continuity to observe all duties. As was seen in chapter second, this, when properly understood, covers a great deal more than is commonly meant, and the profession of it would, perhaps, rarely be ventured if the full scope and bearing of the word were taken in.

When it is said, “Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin,’’ and “He that doeth sin is of the devil,” with similar strong expressions which may be found both in Scripture and in less inspired writings, the meaning manifestly is that no child of God deliberately and habitually sins. Just as not everything which on strict construction would have to be called a departure from exact truth constitutes a man a liar or would take him out of the category of truthful men, so not everything which partakes of the nature of sin, not every failure to make the swiftest possible progress toward the goal of entire Christlikeness, forfeits sonship or deprives a man of his place in the family of God. The offenses and trespasses of the living child are very different from the hostile acts of an enemy; but still they are trespasses or, in other words, sins. Being in a state of sin is quite different from failing to reach a state of perfect deliverance from sin. Between complete sinfulness and complete sinlessness there is a very wide intermediate space, filled up with an almost endless number of gradations. And the exact settlement of any one’s individual position in this scale of approximate sinlessness is a far more delicate and difficult matter than most people suppose. The ordinary rude and crude classification betrays entire ignorance of the primary conditions of the problem.

The expression used above, that complete deliverance from sin must be understood to mean the acquirement of power to observe all duties with absolute continuity, differs, it will be noted, from Dr. Whedon’s, quoted a few pages back, in that he would substitute for the words “absolute continuity’’ the phrase “more or less of continuity.” We cannot think that the great review editor grasped this subject with the clearness that characterized most of his theological discussions. In the Methodist Quarterly Review for July, 1874 (p. 491), he calls “the avoidance of such sin as diminishes the light of God’s smile upon us ”entire sanctification.” This leaves us to infer that there is a sort of sin which we can commit without displeasing God — a proposition that seems to the present writer monstrous. He calls the state of freedom from depravity Adamic perfection and makes it differ from entire sanctification, showing that he takes the latter term in what we have called the lower sense, a freedom from sin in its strict significance, as distinct from depravity or “original sin.” Then he makes a still higher degree of perfection than freedom from all depravity, to be reached at the resurrection, and makes our holiness to be “finitely absolute” at that point.” Then for the first moment the impairment we, one and all, have derived from Adam and sin shall be completely repaired.” Our view puts this complete repairment as equivalent to the removal of all depravity and the restoration of Adamic perfection. And so does Dr. Whedon in other places, even on the following page, where he writes as follows: “We think it accords with Wesleyan theology to say, that the amissibility of even the most entire sanctification in our probationary life is based in a ‘residue’ of our hereditary moral debility. Just because it is part of the great racial impairment waiting the great racial repairment. And just because, also, it is such a correlation of the soul with temptation, belonging to our nature, inherited from the fall, as leaves us, as Mr. Wesley repeatedly states, inferior to Adamic perfection. Whatever inferiority we possess below unfallen Adam must be part of that loss we have suffered from fallen Adam.” (P. 492.) This is true. Therefore, this loss or impairment from Adam, which we commonly call depravity, when removed at the resurrection will give us Adamic perfection.

Why, then, does Dr. Whedon confuse his readers by inventing a stage somewhere between entire sanctification and glorification which he calls deliverance from all depravity, or Adamic perfection? Instead of making, as he does in the above article (see also Methodist Quarterly Review, October, 1874, p. 683), “five degrees of spiritual power over sin,” namely, that seen in entire depravity, in partial depravity, in entire sanctification, in Adamic perfection, where there is no depravity; and in the resurrection state, where there is complete repairment of the impairment derived from Adam, we say there are properly but three de- grees, namely, first, entire depravity, before conversion; second, partial depravity, after conversion and on through this earthly life; third, entire deliverance from depravity, or entire sanctification in the true full sense, after our departure from this world. This threefold division is clear. The fivefold division is very cloudy. It is to the second of these three stages that should be applied Dr. Whedon’s words, ‘‘Such a measure of power over sin as holds us, with more or less continuity, in that same perfect fullness of divine approbation as rested upon us when justification first pronounced us, through Christ, perfectly innocent of sin.” But to call this intermittent condition, as he does, entire sanctification, without any modification of the adjective, naturally and justly provokes strong dissent. A person is not living in the fullness of the divine favor when he is not successfully resisting temptation; and to speak of him as entirely sanctified at that time is a very singular form of speech.

Dr. Whedon says (Methodist Quarterly Review, October, 1874, p. 667), “The permanent continuity of absolute justification (which is guilelessness, evangelical sinlessness) would be the highest sanctification.” But this cannot be admitted as at all satisfactory, since it gives us a highest sanctification compatible with any amount of remaining depravity, provided only that the depravity, through immaturity and ignorance, has not become chargeable upon us as guilt. This theory would give us the crudest kind of saints as exponents of the “highest sanctification.’’ He similarly says in his commentary (Rev. iii, 19): ‘‘The acceptance is as perfect as it was at the moment when first our sins were swept away and we were justified from all sin. And now sanctification, holiness, or what is sometimes called entire sanctification, is the power, through the Spirit, of retaining with more or less permanence that state of complete acceptance, without a cloud between the soul and Christ.”

But if the retention of complete acceptance is for only a part of the time, what can that be called but partial acceptance and, hence, partial sanctification? Every child of God is sometimes in full acceptance with his Lord — then he overcomes temptation and does his whole duty. To call him entirely sanctified, when it is only with ‘more or less permanence ” than he might and ought that he merits God’s favor, does not seem to us admissible. Dr. Whedon does excellently well in bringing out the point that the degrees of sanctification attained consist in degrees of power. He rightly objects to Wesley’s declaration that entire sanctification is simply power “always to cleave. to God.” We, likewise, object to Whedon’s declaration that it is power to retain, “with more or less continuity,” perfect fullness of divine approbation. It seems to us much better to say that the highest degree of sanctification, or Christian perfection, is the power to hold permanently our lower faculties in perfectly normal subjection to the higher, so that reason and conscience will rule us as easily and completely as they were originally designed to do.

It also seems to us much better to speak of different kinds of perfection than, as some do, of different degrees of perfection; for perfection is in itself a superlative, a finality, an arrival at the goal. In that respect in which a thing has attained completion it cannot be more complete; if the fruit is ripe it can be no riper. There may be different stages or degrees of unripeness. So there may be different stages or degrees of imperfection, or, in other words, degrees of approach to perfection. A thing may be perfect in one particular or aspect, while not in another, as a fruit may be perfect in flavor, but not in shape. So, in whatsoever particular a man is perfect, in that particular there can be no further increase. The degrees have been left behind. The phrase appears to be chiefly in vogue with those who identify perfection and maturity. There certainly are degrees of maturity, as the word is commonly taken, in its loose, vague sense. But when “perfection” is employed with the strictness which properly belongs to the word in theological discussion it is not proper to speak of it as having degrees. It is similarly inappropriate to talk of degrees in entire purity or entire sanctification, since the entireness is that to which the degrees lead up.

The question whether entire sanctification is possible in this life can never be answered satisfactorily or intelligently without a specification of the sense in which the term is to be taken. Sanctification being to make holy, entire sanctification will be to make entirely or perfectly holy — in other words, to produce a condition wherein the perfect love of, God completely controls everything. The same two meanings, lower and, higher, which we have explained with reference to perfection exist here with reference to entire sanctification, a phrase of precisely similar compass. The sanctification, or cleansing, or empowering, is entire or perfect at conversion up to the light then given, so that when justified every person is in the relative or comparative sense entirely sanctified. And whenever, at any subsequent point, after a season of retrogression he comes fully up to his light and once more walks in unclouded communion he becomes again entirely sanctified, in this lower sense. Entire sanctification, in the higher or absolute sense, where something more than the partial knowledge and inferior, undeveloped powers of the young convert come in, where, indeed, complete knowledge and the powers of unfallen humanity are implied, must, as with the higher perfection, tarry till another life.

Many Methodist theologians vent a great deal of uncalled-for scorn and sarcasm on those who hold that we cannot be sanctified in the fullest sense until the body has been dropped off, charging us with believing in a death purgatory, a heathen philosophy, and the inherent evil of matter and with substituting something else for the blood of Christ as the proper purifier of the soul. All this is wholly beside the mark and comes from confounding things that differ. As is seen by the quotation a few pages back, they really attack John Wesley himself, although far from meaning so to do; for he says that our souls are so pressed down by these shattered bodies that they cannot in this life always think, speak, or act aright. Hence, there is a degree of salvation that cannot come to us until we shake off the body. A greater than Wesley has declared the same things, even the mighty apostle to the Gentiles, who, in Rom. viii, 19-25, fully explains that “the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God,” for that time when “the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For by hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” This can mean nothing but that we are not yet any of us fully saved and, in the largest meaning of the term, not yet completely redeemed, not yet made perfectly whole, not yet, in the complete or absolute sense, entirely sanctified. But this great fact by no means reflects upon the power of Christ, minifies the efficacy of his blood, or gives any aid to the peculiar doctrines of Romanism. All such talk shows superficial thinking. Death is not the means of our deliverance, as though power were attributed to it, but it is the occasion. God’s alone is the power. But it is not irreverence to say such are the necessities of the case that he cannot do for us in this life what he purposes to do in another.

It will, perhaps, be sufficiently evident from this what we mean when we say that our whole Christian life on earth should be one of progressive sanctification. That is the proper term for characterizing all the path between the sanctification which marks the entrance on the Christian life and the entire sanctification which marks the close of the earthly Christian life and the entrance on the heavenly. It is quite within our power to be always fully sanctified in the lower sense, according to the knowledge of God’s will at any time possessed, and to be making continual advance in this knowledge, as also in the knowledge of our own heart, and so to be growing in holiness. We shall thus have the apparent anomaly of something which is completed and progressing at the same time; but, of course, this cannot be in the same sense. For in whatsoever particulars sanctification is complete, in these particulars its progress has ceased. So far as selfishness or depravity to any degree remains and is being steadily diminished, by the cooperation of the divine and human agents that are warring against it, so far and so long our sanctification is progressing, not having yet reached its goal.

That goal can be nothing less than entire Christlikeness, even as Paul so distinctly intimates in Eph. iv, 12-15 — a most important passage which we have already referred to for another purpose. He tells us there that the “perfecting of the saints,” in other words, “ the building up of the body of Christ,” is to go on until we attain “unto a full-grown [or perfect] man,” that is “unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” or unto the full stature of Christ, who is the perfect man, till we “grow up in all things unto him.” This is the same as to say that we are to grow or progress till we each become a full formed Christ, till we reach complete similarity to him, our Pattern and Head. That this will not be until we pass up to glory and — seeing him for the first time as he is, because then for the first time capable of the beatific vision — become, as St. John declares, fully like him, it needs no argument to prove.

But, though this blessed ideal we may not expect fully to realize here below, it is none the less our duty and our delight to press forward toward it with ever eager stride. The healthy normal Christian life is a perpetual forward march, on from the beginning point of conversion to the glorious consummation in the skies. Our enlightenment as to God’s holy will concerning us and our apprehension of the wonders of divine love continually increase. And, as they increase, Christ is more completely formed within us, and the self-life correspondingly diminishes. Thus, there is never any standing still. It is less and less of self, more and more of Christ, all the time. Each day, no doubt, to the divine eye shows a difference, as in the springtime growth each day of the grass; but to our duller faculties longer periods are necessary to reveal the progress. So we go on, on, on, steadily, grandly progressing; perfect all the time in the lower sense — this at least is possible — yet pressing forward to that higher perfection which involves fullness of knowledge, and so fullness of growth; loving God the whole time with all our poor dwarfed powers, but gaining new powers daily with which to love him better; entirely sanctified each week up to the light and strength then given, but conscious that our sanctification is unceasingly progressing, nevertheless. Miss Havergal has voiced the paradox in her familiar rhymes,

Perfect, yet it floweth
Fuller every day;
Perfect, yet it groweth
Deeper all the way.

There is but little excuse for anyone’s failing to recognize that this prize of entire Christlikeness, this full apprehension of God’s love which passeth our present power of knowledge, is at the end of the race, at the resurrection, since Paul has so plainly expressed the thought, in that brilliant passage (Phil. iii, 8-14), whose glowing words have filled the heart of the Church ever since they were penned, where he pours out his passionate desire fully to know Christ and “the power of his resurrection, ... if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Toward this same prize, this glorious perfection, every true Christian is pressing, getting ever nearer to it, getting as near to it day by day as is possible, drinking in more and more of the unutterable fullness of the divine Lord. In no other way can he be entirely acceptable with God.

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