Authoritative Life of General William Booth — The Spirit of The Army, Part 3

"By perseverance in the sanctified life spiritual manhood is reached, and the soul is perfected in love; that is maturity.

"Let me illustrate the doctrine of Holiness, in its varied aspects, by comparing its attainment to the ascent of a lofty mountain.

"Come with me.

Yonder is the sacred mount, towering far above the clouds and fogs of sin and selfishness.

Around its base, stretching into the distance, as far as eye can reach, lies a flat, dismal, swampy country.

The district is thickly populated by a people who, while professing the enjoyment of religion, are swallowed up in unreality about everything that appertains to Salvation.

They talk, and sing, and pray, and write, and read about it, but they are all more or less in doubt whether they have any individual part or lot in the matter.

Sometimes they think they have a hope of Heaven, but more frequently they are afraid that their very hopes are a delusion.

"The land is haunted by troubling spirits continually coming and going, that point to past misdoings and coming penalties.

Such venomous creatures as hatreds, revenges, lusts, and other evil passions are rife in every direction; while the demons of doubt and despair seem to come and go of their own free will, leading men and women on the one hand to indifference, worldliness, and infidelity, and on the other to darkness and despair.

This wild, dismal territory we will style 'The Land of Uncertainty.'

"In the centre of this unlovable and undesirable country the mountain of which I want to speak lifts its lofty head.

Call it 'Mount Pisgah' or 'Mount Beulah,' or, if you will, call it 'Mount Purity'--I like that term the best.

But whatever you name it, there it is, rising up above the clouds and fogs of sin and selfishness, and doubt and fear and condemnation that ever overhang the swampy Land of Uncertainty, of which I have given you a glimpse.

"Look at it.

There are some monster mountains in the natural world, but they are mere molehills alongside this giant height.

Look at it again.

Is it not an entrancing sight?

Its lofty brow, crowned with a halo of glorious light, reaches far upwards towards the gates of endless day, those living on its summit having glorious glimpses of the towers and palaces of the Celestial City.

The atmosphere is eminently promotive of vigorous health and lively spirits.

But its chief claim is the purity of heart, the constant faith, the loving nature, and the consecrated, self-sacrificing devotion of those who are privileged to dwell there.

It must be a charming place.

The multitudes whose feet have ever been permitted to tread its blessed heights think so.

"But while gazing on the entrancing sight, the question spontaneously arises: 'How can I get there?'

There is evidently no mountain railway nor elevator on which, while reclining on pillows of ease, and serenaded by music and song, you can be rapidly and smoothly lifted up to the blessed summit.

Those who reach that heavenly height must climb what the Bible calls the 'Highway of Holiness.'

And they will usually find it a rugged, difficult journey, often having to fight every inch of the way.

But, once on the celestial summit, the travellers will feel amply repaid for every atom of trouble and toil involved in the ascent.

"The road to this glorious height passes through various plateaux or stages which run all round the sides of the mountain, each different from the other, and each higher than the one that preceded it.

Travellers to the summit have to pass through each of these stages.

Let me enumerate some of the chief among them.

"To begin with, there is the awakening stage, where the climbers obtain their first fair view of this holy hill.

"It is here that the desire to make the ascent first breaks out.

This longing is often awakened by reading various guide-books or Holiness advertisements, such as _The War Cry_, or _Perfect Love_, which set forth the blessedness experienced by those who make the heavenly ascent.

Sometimes the desire to ascend the holy hill is awakened by the pure light which every now and then shines from the summit direct into the travellers' hearts.

Or, it may be their souls are set on fire with a holy longing to be emptied of sin and filled with love by the burning testimonies of some of the people who live up there, but who come down into the valley every now and then to persuade their comrades to make the ascent.

Anyway, it almost always happens when those who read these guide-books and listen to these testimonies begin to search their Bibles and cry to God for guidance, that a spirit of hunger and thirst sets in which gives them no rest until they themselves resolve to take the journey up the side of this wonderful mountain.

"A little higher up, and you reach the starting stage.

"Here those who fully resolve upon seeking holiness of heart first enter their names in the 'Travellers' Book.'

On this plateau I observe that there is a great deal of prayer.

You can hear the earnest petitions going up to Heaven, whichever way you turn.

And, much prayer as there is, you can hear much singing also.

One of the favourite songs commences:-- "O glorious hope of perfect love!

It lifts me up to things above, It bears on eagles' wings;

It gives my ravished soul a taste, And makes me for some moments feast With Jesus' priests and kings.

"There is another favourite song which begins:-- "O joyful sound of Gospel grace!

Christ shall in me appear;

I, even I, shall see His face, I shall be holy here.

"But, still ascending, we come to the wrestling stage.

"Here the travellers are met by numerous enemies, who are in dead opposition to their ever reaching the summit.

"I observe that the enemies attack those travellers with doubts as to the possibility of ever reaching the mountain's top, and with scores of questions about apparently conflicting passages of Scripture, and contradictory experiences of Christian people; and, alas!

with only too frequent success, for the whole plateau seems to be strewn with the records of broken resolutions relating to the renouncements of evil habits, tempting companions, and deluding indulgences.

"And I observe that lying about are many unfulfilled consecrations relating to friends, and money, and children, and time, and other things; in fact, this stage seems to be a strange mixture of faith and unbelief; so much so that it is difficult to believe that we are on the slopes of Mount Purity at all.

"Here you will find posted on the sides of the rocks in all directions placards bearing the words: 'The things I would do those I do not, and the things I would not do those I do, and there is no spiritual health in me.'

And up and down you will also see notice-boards warning would-be travellers not to climb any higher for fear they should fall again.

"But, thank God, while many chicken-hearted souls lie down in despair on this plateau, or retrace their steps to the dreary regions below, others declare that there is no necessity for failure.

These push forward in the upward ascent, singing as they go:-- "Though earth and hell the world gainsay, The word of God can never fail;

The Lamb shall take my sins away, 'Tis certain, though impossible;

The thing impossible shall be, All things are possible to me.

"So, persevering with our journey, higher up, very much higher up, we come to the sin-mastering stage.

"This is a glorious plateau.

All who enter it do so by the narrow passage of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; receiving in their souls, as they pass the threshold, the delightful assurance of full and free forgiveness through the Blood of the Lamb.

"Here men and women walk with heads erect in holy confidence, and hearts glad with living faith, and mouths full of joyous song, and eyes steadily fixed on the holy light that streams from the summit of the mount above them.

That holy beacon guide is ever calling on them to continue their journey, and ever directing them on the way.

"Those who have reached this stage have already made great and encouraging progress; for God has made them conquerors over their inward foes.

The rule and reign of pride and malice, envy and lust, covetousness and sensuality, and every other evil thing have come to an end.

"They triumph on that account, but the conflict is not yet ended.

Sometimes the battling is very severe; but with patient, plodding faith they persevere in the ascent, singing as they go:-- "Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, And looks to that alone;

Laughs at impossibilities, And cries, 'It shall be done!'

"And now, close at hand, is the stage of deliverance, where the triumph is begun.

"And now, ten thousand Hallelujahs!

let it be known to all the world around, that once on this plateau the separation from sin is entire; the heart is fully cleansed from evil; the promise is proved to be true, 'They that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.'

"At a great Christian Conference the other day an eminent divine said that The Salvation Army believed in a 'perfect sinner,' but that he believed in a 'perfect Saviour.'

This, I contend, was a separation of what God has joined together and which never ought to be put asunder.

For, glory be to the Father, glory be to the Son, and glory be to the Holy Ghost, The Salvation Army believes, with its Lord, that a perfect Saviour can make a poor sinner into a perfect saint.

That is, He can enable him to fulfil His own command, in which He says: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.'

(_Matthew_ v. 48. ) "But there is one plateau higher still which, like a tableland, covers the entire summit of the mountain, and that the maturity stage.

"Here the graces of the Spirit have been perfected experience, and faith, and obedience, and the soul does the will of God as it is done in Heaven, united in the eternal companionship of that lovely being--the Spirit of Purity.

"What do you say to my holy mountain, my comrades?

"Are you living up there?

Have you climbed as near to Heaven as that represents?

If not, I want to make a declaration which you have often heard before, but which it will do you no harm to hear again, namely, that it is the will of God that you should not only reach the very summit, but that you should abide there.

"Do you ask why God wills that you should reach and abide on this holy mountain?

"I reply it is the will of God that you and I, and every other Officer in this blessed Army, should be holy for His own satisfaction.

"God finds pleasure in holy men and holy women.

We know what it is to find pleasure in kindred companions.

It is to like to be near them.

To want to live with them, or have them to live with us.

It is to be willing to travel any distance, or put ourselves to any inconvenience to reach them.

According to the Bible, that is just how God feels towards His faithful people.

He finds satisfaction in their doings, and praying, and worship, and song.

But when there is unfaithfulness or sin of any kind this pleasure is sadly marred, if not altogether destroyed.

In such cases the pleasure is turned to pain, the satisfaction to loathing, and the love to hatred.

"Hear what He says of Israel: 'In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.'

If for no other reason than the pleasure it will give to God, don't you think every Officer should, with all his might, seek for Holiness of heart and life?

"Another reason why God wants you to live on that blessed mountain is the interest He feels in your welfare.

"He loves you.

He has told you so again and again.

He has proved His love by His deeds.

Love compels the being entertaining the affection to seek the good of its object.

He knows that sin is the enemy of your peace, and must mean misery here and hereafter.

For this reason among others, He wants to deliver you from it.

"You will remember that by the lips of Peter God told the Jews that He had raised up His Son Jesus, and sent Him to bless them by turning every one of them away from his iniquities.

That applies to you, my comrades.

You have heard it before; I tell it you again.

Holiness is the royal road to peace, contentment, and joy for you.

The love God bears you, therefore, makes Him ceaselessly long after your Holiness of heart and life.

Will you not let Him have His way?

Will you not do His Will?

"God wants every Officer to be holy, in order that through him He may be able to pour His Holy Spirit upon the people to whom that Officer ministers.

"The men and women around you are in the dark.

Oh, how ignorant they are of God and everlasting things!

They cannot see the vile nature of the evil, and the foul character of the fiends that tempt and rule them.

They do not see the black ruin that lies before them.

So on they go, the blind leading the blind, till over the precipice they fall together.

God wants their eyes to be opened.

The Spirit can do the work, and through you He wants to pour the light.

"The men and women around you are weak.

They cannot stand up against their own perverted appetites, the charms of the world, or the devices of the Devil.

God wants to pour the Spirit of Power upon this helpless crowd.

But He wants holy people through whom He can convey that strength.

He works His miracles by clean people.

That is His rule.

"There is nothing in the work of the early Apostles more wonderful than the miraculous manner in which they went about breathing the Spirit of Life and Light and Power on the people.

But they were fully consecrated, Blood-and-Fire men and women.

"What do you say, my comrades?

Will you be holy mediums?

Do you not answer, 'Thy will be done'?

"God wants you to be holy, in order that you may reveal Him to the world by your example.

"Men do not believe in God--that is, the real God--the God of the Bible; and they do not believe in Him, because they do not know Him.

"He seeks to reveal Himself to men in various ways.

He reveals Himself through the marvels of the natural world; and many say they can see God in the sun, and stars, and seas, and trees.

He reveals Himself by speaking to men in their own hearts, and many hear His whisperings there.

He reveals Himself in His own Book, and some read and ascertain what is His mind there.

"But, alas!

the great multitude are like children.

They require to see and hear God revealed before their very eyes in visible and practical form before they will believe.

And to reach these crowds, God wants men and women to walk about the world so that those around, believers and unbelievers alike, shall see the form and hear the voice of the living God; people who shall be so like Him in spirit, and life, and character as to make the crowds feel as though the very shadow of God had crossed their path.

Will you be a shadow of God?

"God wants you to be holy, in order that you may know what His mind is about the world, and about your work in it.

"He entertains certain opinions and feelings with respect to it.

He has His own plan for saving it.

He wants to reveal to you what those opinions and feelings are, and to do this so far as it will be good for you and those about you.

He wants you to know how you can best fight devils, convict sinners, save souls, and bless the world.

"You can have this wonderful knowledge.

Paul had it.

He said 'We,' that is, I, 'have the mind of Christ.'

God is no respecter of persons.

He is as willing to reveal His mind to you, so far as you need it, as He was to reveal it to Paul.

"But to possess this knowledge you must be holy.

Sin darkens the understanding, and hinders the perception of truth.

A grain of sand in the eye will prevent you seeing the most beautiful landscape in the universe, or the dearest friends you have.

It is with the heart that men see divine things, and an atom of sin will darken the brightest vision that can come before you.

With a pure heart you can not only see God's truth, but God Himself.

Oh, God wants to reveal Himself to you.

Will you let Him?

But if He is to do so, you must have a clean heart.

"It is God's will that you should be holy, because He wants you to be men and women of courage.

"Courage is the most valuable quality in this War.

There are few gifts of greater importance.

Only think what it has enabled the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Salvation leaders of modern times to accomplish!

How it covered Moses, and Joshua, and David, and Daniel, and Paul, and a crowd of others with glory, and enabled them to conquer men, and devils, and difficulties of all kinds.

I

shall have something more to say about this before I have done.

"Courage and Holiness are linked closely together.

You cannot have one without the other.

Sin is the very essence of weakness.

A

little selfishness, a little insincerity, a little of anything that is evil means condemnation, and loss of courage, which means cowardice and failure.

"'The wicked flee when no man pursueth.'

Double-minded people are uncertain, fickle, unreliable in all their ways.

'The righteous are bold as a lion.'

Remember Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.

"God wants you to be holy, in order that He may do mighty works through your instrumentality.

"I verily believe that His arm is held back from working wonders through the agency of many Officers, because He sees that such success would be their ruin.

The spirit of Nebuchadnezzar is in them.

He cannot build Babylon, or London, or New York, or anything else by their instrumentality, because He sees it would create the spirit of vainglory and boasting, or of ambition; make them dissatisfied with their position; or otherwise curse them and those about them.

Look at Saul.

What a lesson his history has in it for us all.

'When thou wast little in thine own sight wast thou not made the head of the Tribes of Israel?

and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel.'

"Now, I may be asked whether some Officers do not fail to reach the higher ranges of the experience I have here described, and the reasons for this.

"To this question I reply that I am afraid that it is only too true that some Officers are to be found who are willing to dwell in the land of uncertainty and feebleness.

They are the slaves of habits they condemn in others.

Their example is marred, their powers are weakened for their work, and, instead of going onward and upward to the victory they believe so gloriously possible, they are a disappointment to themselves, to God, and to their leaders.

"If I am asked to name the reasons for their neglect of this glorious privilege, I would say:-- "They have doubts about the possibility of living this life of Holiness.

"They think there is some fatal necessity laid upon them to sin--at least a little, or just now and then.

They think that God cannot, or that He will not, or that He has not arranged to save them altogether from their inward evils.

They know that the Bible says, over and over again, in a thousand different ways, that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin; and they read God's promise again and again, that He will pour out His Spirit upon them, to save them from all their idols and filthiness; but they doubt whether it is strictly true, or anyway, whether it applies to them.

And so, tossed to and fro by doubts about this holy experience, no wonder that they do not seek to realise it in their own hearts.

"Other Officers are kept back from climbing this mountain by the idea that the experience is not possible for them.

"They say, 'Oh, yes, it is good, it is beautiful.

I wish I lived up there.

How delightful it must be to have peace flow like a river, and righteousness abound as the waves of the sea, and to be filled with the Spirit!

But such a life is not for me.'

They admit the possibility of Holiness in those about them, and occasionally they push it on their acceptance; but they fancy that there is something about their own case that makes it impossible, or, at least, overwhelmingly difficult, for them to attain it.

"They imagine that there is something in their nature that makes it peculiarly difficult for them to be holy.

Some peculiar twist in their minds.

Some disagreeable disposition.

Some bad, awkward temper.

Some unbelieving tendency.

Or, they are hindered by something that they suppose to be specially unfavourable in their circumstances--their family.

Or, there is something in their history that they think is opposed to their living pure lives--they have failed in their past efforts, etc. "Anyway, there is, they imagine, some insurmountable obstacle to their walking with Christ in white, and, instead of striking out for the summit of the Holy Mountain in desperate and determined search, relying on God's word that all things are possible to him that believeth, they give up, and settle down to the notion that Holiness of heart and life is not for them.

"Then, other Officers do not reach this experience because they do not seek it; that is, they do not seek it with all their hearts.

"They do not climb.

"They know that their Bible most emphatically asserts that those who seek heavenly blessings shall find them.

No passage is more familiar to their minds or much more frequently on their lips, than the one spoken by Jesus Christ: 'Seek, and ye shall find.'

And they condemn the poor sinner who lies rotting in the sins which will carry him to Hell, because he won't put forth a little effort to find deliverance.

And yet, do not some Officers act very much after the same fashion with respect to this blessing?

"In their efforts they are truly sincere, but they are not much more forward for them.

They say 'It is not for me,' and settle down as they were.

"The reason for this is not that the promise is not to them.

But it is because they have not been thorough in their surrender; or because they have been wanting in their belief; or because they do not persevere; or because they have been mistaken in some past experience:-- "Another reason why Officers do not find the blessing is the simple fact that they will not pay the price.

"There is something they will not do; or there is something they will do; or there is something they will not part with; there is some doubtful thing that they will not give up.

The sacrifice is too great.

They think they would not be happy, or some one else would not be happy, or something would not be satisfactory; and so they look and look at the mountain, and long and long, but that is all.

They would like to be there, but the price is too great.

"Another reason why Officers fail is neither more nor less than their want of faith.

"This, with sincere souls, is by far the most common hindrance.

I

have something to say about faith further on.

"And, doubtless, the reason that some Officers fail to reach the upper levels of Mount Purity arises out of their mistaken views as to the nature of this experience.

"You have so often heard me dwell on this view of the subject that I despair of saying anything fresh that will help you.

But, knowing that I am on ground where truly sincere souls are often hindered, I will make one or two remarks:-- "I have no doubt that many fail here by confounding temptation with sin.

"They pray--they consecrate--they believe that they receive, and they rejoice.

But by and by, when bad thoughts are suggested to their minds, they say to themselves, 'Oh, I can't be saved from sin, or I would not have all those wicked thoughts and suggestions streaming through my soul."

"They confound temptation with sin.

Whatever they may say about it, they do not see the difference existing between temptation and sin.

"Some Officers are hindered in the fight for Holiness by supposing that purity will deliver them from serious depression, low spirits, and the like.

"With many sincere souls I have no doubt that one of the most serious hindrances in this strife is the confounding of Holiness with happiness, and thinking that if they are holy they will be happy all the time; whereas the Master Himself was a Man of Sorrows, and lived, more or less, a life of grief.

"Then there comes the last reason I shall notice, and that is the want of perseverance.

There are some Officers who have been up the mountain--part of the way, at any rate, if not to the top.

But through disobedience, or want of faith, they have no longer the experience they once enjoyed.

"The condition.

You say to sinners that they are never to give up.

I do, at least.

So with those who are seeking Holiness.

They must persevere or they will never find it."

Chapter XXVIII