“Perfectionism!” This one word,
perfectionism, has kept and is now keeping thousands from examining into
the matter at all. It is high time this stumbling stone was gathered out
of the way. It may indeed become a beacon light to show the mariner in his
heavenward voyage the hidden rock where noble souls have struck in days gone
by, and so warn him of its peril, and induce him to give it a wide berth
as he passes safely on — but it has no place by right in the way. There
is not the least necessary connection between the experience described and
perfectionism. It is true that some have connected the two things, but they
are entirely distinct and widely different from each other. The experience
is a fact, and as a fact it has been exemplified in the instances we have
referred to, and thousands besides, in which the theory of perfectionism
had not so much as a thought given to it, or if a thought or a word, it was
a word of denial, as in the cases of Luther and D’Aubigne. Perfectionism
on the other hand is a theory — a notion or system of notions —
which may have place in the head, either with or without the experience in
the heart. Doubtless there have been many who have accepted the theory of
perfectionism, and also come into the experience of full salvation by faith
— but there are many also who have taken up the idea of perfectionism,
and hell it strenuously without having come into the experience at all. The
two things, therefore, have no necessary connection whatever, or the examples
given, must go for nothing.
Two illustrations may serve to make this entirely
clear. In a little book, which at the time excited some attention and induced
an answer from the late venerable Leonard Woods, D. D.,” Mahan on Christian
Perfection,“ the author, in a narrative near the close of the book very
naively informs us, that first at Oberlin, at a time when there was deep
and increasing religious interest, he himself and Mr. Finney, became deeply
impressed with the necessity of greater holiness of heart, and after a period
of intense anxiety and earnest struggling, first one, then the other came
out into the light, to see that the Lord Jesus Christ must be, and was their
sanctification, as already they had before received him as their
justification.
They began then to preach the full gospel as they
then for the first apprehended it. Power attended the preaching. Many were
impressed in like manner, and many in like manner came into the light of
this second conversion. So the matter went on for six months, while as yet
there was no adoption of either the theory or the name of perfectionism.
Six whole months it was a nameless experience, or at most called second
conversion. After a while, hike the Israelites in the wilderness, when the
bread of heaven was given them in the dew of the morning, they began to say
one to another, “Manna? manna? What is it? What is it?“ Then, as
the author informs us, there was quite a shock given them — a thrill
of revolt, when one asked in one of their meetings, “Is this Christian
perfection?" They hushed the question — but tagged it. A thousand pities
that they had not dropped it! But no. By and by, when college vacation came,
they two, Mr. M. and Mr. F. took the question to New York with them —
as yet three months after the experience received — an open question
to be discussed and decided. While in New York, after long deliberation,
they accepted and adopted the name Christian perfection, or entire
sanctification, and elaborated their own peculiar theory according to their
own peculiar philosophy and theology; and with this returned to Oberlin to
make it the head quarters and stronghold of the system we have named the
Oberlinian.
Now this fact proves one thing beyond the possibility
of successful controversy, viz: that in their own ease, the experience they
described and the theory they imbibed are and were separate and distinct,
having no necessary connection whatever with each other.
Another, a very different case, will serve to
make separation wider and plainer still. One, who in these pages shall be
nameless, though known to the writer, became deeply interested in the subject
from reading the memoirs of eminent Christians, James Brainerd Taylor, first
of all. By and by he came to associate the terms of the Wesleyans and the
ideas of the Oberlinians, with the experience narrated by Taylor. At first
it was a hard matter for him to gain his own consent to accept these terms
and ideas, and still harder to be willing to acknowledge it. But he did it.
The experience he believed to be true, and saw to be excellent. His heart
yearned for it. He was not satisfied with what he felt in himself and saw
in others. He was sure there was something better within hopeful reach in
the gospel. And, alas for him, perfectionism was thrown square in his way.
He must accept it and acknowledge it — so he verily thought — or
fail of the blessedness he saw in prospect and longed to
enjoy.
As God in mercy would have it, this obstacle did
not stop him as it has stopped thousands — stopped them, to use a paradox
— before they had started. He urged his way onward. The struggle was
long and severe. His was the blessedness at last, however, to overcome. He
conquered. He fought his way to the tree of life in the midst of the paradise
of God, and gained the hidden manna, and the white stone with the new name,
known only to himself. But now came instantly an entire change of view about
the whole matter of perfection. In the experience, his own utter vileness
was shown him, just as Isaiah saw his in the vision of the Lord on his throne;
and like Daniel in his vision of the glorious Redeemer in his amber purity
and sunlight holiness, he felt his very comeliness turned in-to corruption.
While at the same time he saw the fulness of God’s glorious grace, and
felt that Jesus would be with him evermore, to keep him and work in him by
the Holy Spirit his own holy will. And then came instantly the question,
” Is this the perfection I have been seeking?” The answer was
irresistibly “No.” He had been seeking and expecting to be wholly
sanctified in a moment by Divine power, and made fully conscious that he
was absolutely and entirely holy. But, instead of that, he had his eyes opened
to see his utter unholiness and to see that Christ must answer wholly for
him, and clothe him altogether with his own (Christ’s own) righteousness,
and keep him by his own mighty power through faith, and change him as by
the spirit of the Lord from glory to glory into his own image. He rose therefore
from his knees, not to profess himself perfect, by any means, but to say
and to feel that Christ was all in all to him, while he was nothing but sin
in- himself.
At once and forever he dropped the theory of
perfectionism, and the terms, also, as misnomers of the experience, while
from that at day on-ward until now he has rejoiced in full salvation, through
full trust in Jesus.
Here then we have two illustrations that the theory
of perfection, and the fact of the experience in question have no necessary
connection. In the first, the experience was gained first while the theory
was unthought of, and indeed shocking at the time, and adopted only after
months of delay and speculation.
And in the second, the theory was adopted first,
months before the experience was gained, and then thrown aside as at variance
with the experience in the moment when that was gained.
Another and still different illustration may not
be without use.
This whole subject, experience and theory together
had been forced upon the attention of one who had been then three years or
more a cheerful, decided, happy Christian. It was disagreeable to her, not
because she was not anxious to gain all that such an one as she might reasonably
hope for. Already she had found more in religion, than in all the round of
the gay world most fully tried, and really enjoyed by her. The nectar of
love sipped from the lily of the valley, and from the rose of Sharon, had
been too sweet to her to be turned from with disgust, or disrelish even.
But heresy! the fear of heresy! or of fanaticism, or extravagance! She shrank
from the approach of anything threatening in the least to drive her into
ultraism. She could not bear the thought of separating between herself and
the Christian world, in which she had found such sweet and happy fellowship.
Every book upon this subject was avoided. All conversation about it carefully
eschewed. At last however, in a leisure, and yet a sacred hour, one Sabbath
morning, when kept from the house of prayer by slight illness, her eye fell
upon the story of another’s experience of this second conversion, or
as he called it, Christian perfection. The narrative was simple, sincere,
and truthful. She saw it to be true and real, and she saw it to be as blessed
as true, and as necessary as blessed. In that hour her resolution was taken.
She gave up her fears. Resolved nobly to take the truth, and take with it
whatever of loss or cross it might bring. The struggle was severe but short.
The Lord graciously led her to believe in Jesus most fully, and she found
rest. Peace as a river, joy in its sweet fulness, love inexpressible flowed
in from Christ the fountain, and she was beyond measure happy. Her conversion
had been bright, hut not brighter than this her second conversion. At once
the desire that all might know of this the Christian’s precious privilege,
rose like the waters of a spring newly opened, filling her heart to the brim,
and ready to overflow. She sought opportunity to make the matter known. But
now arose a practical difficulty. What should she say she had experienced?
A few friends were to meet socially, a parlor gathering, to talk by the way,
of what the Lord had done for them in bringing them hitherto in their pilgrimage.
She became perplexed, really distressed with the question, “what shall
I tell them?” “Shall I tell them I have experienced entire
sanctification? I never felt my unholiness more or so much. Shall I say I
have been made perfect? That would indeed prove me perverse, for I never
saw my imperfection so clearly, or felt it so deeply. I see Christ a perfect
Saviour, and he is mine, and all I want; but I am a perfect sinner, needing
a perfect Saviour indeed. I cannot say I am perfect. What then shall I say?
For I must witness for Jesus. I must try and get others to trust fully in
him.”
In her perplexity she appealed for advice to a
friend, who wisely counselled her that she had nothing at all to do with
the question of perfection, least of all to profess herself to be perfect.
She had only to tell what a sinner she herself was, and what a Saviour she
had found.
This gave her relief at once and forever And although
now for many years she has been a constant, faithful, earnest, successful
witness for Jesus, testifying the things, and none other than the things
he has done for her, she has never felt herself under any necessity to profess
Christian perfection, nor yet has she felt her joys and comforts, or her
usefulness one jot the less for steering clear of that profession, but greater.
She has the liberty as well as the fulness of the blessings of the
gospel.
The purpose of these illustrations is not controversy,
with those who hold the Oberlinian or the Wesleyan views of this matter,
but simply to take up a stumbling stone out of the way of the many thousands
in Christendom, who are deterred by it from gaining the higher heights, and
deeper depths of the knowledge and love of Jesus, as a Saviour from sin.
If it were not for this, the question of perfectionism might sleep forever,
without one word of awakening from the writer. And now his object will be
fully gained, if in these brief remarks and few illustrations, the fact shall
be clearly and fully made known, that none need fear the necessity running
into perfectionism, in pressing for all fulness of the riches of the grace
of God.