Samuel Logan Brengle Books: A Guide to All 5 and Where to Start
Samuel Logan Brengle (1860–1936) was the Salvation Army's great teacher of holiness. He wrote for Army soldiers and officers, so his books are short, plain and full of stories from his meetings. TheWay Library has five of them, all free to read: two handbooks on holiness, a book on the Holy Spirit, a guide for soul-winners, and a late collection of essays. For his life story, see who was Samuel Logan Brengle.
His best-known book, Helps to Holiness, isn't in the library yet. The five below cover the same teaching and a good deal more.
Where to start
If you're new to Brengle, start with The Way of Holiness. It's the shortest and simplest of his books, written for young people, and it explains his whole message in thirteen chapters.
After that, choose by what you want:
- More on holiness and how to keep it: Heart Talks on Holiness.
- The Holy Spirit: When the Holy Ghost Is Come.
- Serving Christ and winning others: The Soul-Winner's Secret.
- Brengle in his later years: Love-Slaves.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of Samuel Logan Brengle quotes.
Books on holiness
The Way of Holiness (1902)
Brengle wrote this for the young people of the Salvation Army. It opens with a girl who asked him what sanctification was. "To have that bad temper taken out," he answered, and then he widened the answer to having all sin taken away and the heart filled with love. The chapters that follow ask what holiness is, why we should be holy, how to get it, and whether it can be received now. The rest show holiness at work: in the body and senses, in quiet influence on others, in humility, zeal for souls, duty and prayer. One short chapter treats worry as a holiness question:
Worry is a great foe to Holiness, and perfect trust puts an end to worry.
The Way of Holiness, Holiness and Worry
It reads in about two hours. Read The Way of Holiness.
Heart Talks on Holiness (1900)
Twenty-seven short talks, written as a sequel to Helps to Holiness. The first six are the core: the death of "the old man," what holiness is not and what it is, how to get it, what hinders it, what a clean heart produces, and how to keep it. Brengle is careful to say what holiness doesn't promise: not constant rapture, not freedom from temptation or trouble, not a state from which we can't fall.
It is possible to lose the blessing of a clean heart, but, thank God, it is also gloriously possible to keep it.
Heart Talks on Holiness, How to Keep a Clean Heart
Later chapters look at Enoch, Paul and other examples, and give practical counsel on testimony, thanksgiving, evil-speaking and being useful. Don't miss How to Study the Bible, where he tells you to read Scripture the way a lover reads letters from the one he loves. Read Heart Talks on Holiness.
The Holy Spirit
When the Holy Ghost Is Come
Twenty-three chapters on the Spirit and the sanctified life, all hanging on Acts 1:8: "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Brengle starts with who the Spirit is, and there he tells the story of the day his own heart was cleansed, January 9, 1885. He then asks whether the baptism with the Spirit is a "third blessing" after salvation and sanctification, and answers no. Chapters follow on the witness of the Spirit, purity and power, trying the spirits, guidance, the sin against the Holy Ghost, praying in the Spirit and the anointed preacher. It ends with victory over suffering and over an evil temper.
The preacher must be more than a man — he must be a man plus the Holy Ghost.
When the Holy Ghost Is Come, Characteristics of the Anointed Preacher
This is his longest and fullest book. Good chapters to begin with are The Witness of the Spirit and Guidance. Read When the Holy Ghost Is Come.
Christian work
The Soul-Winner's Secret (1900)
A handbook for Salvation Army officers and anyone who wants to lead others to Christ. Brengle's "secret" is that the soul-winner's own heart comes first: he must be saved and sanctified himself, and he must obey, pray and burn with zeal. Then come plain chapters on using time well, study, health, money and an undivided heart. Later chapters explain how to preach for a decision, how to care for new converts, how to reach children, and how to speak with gentleness. The book closes with two chapters on the Bible.
The truth is, that we love the Lord no better than we love His Word.
The Soul-Winner's Secret, Importance and Benefits of Bible Study
Pastors and youth workers will find the chapter on Keeping the Flock especially useful. Read The Soul-Winner's Secret.
Later essays
Love-Slaves (1923)
Eighteen articles written at different times and gathered late in Brengle's life. The title chapter shows James, Peter, Jude and Paul proudly calling themselves the slaves of Jesus Christ, bound by love. Others treat being "a man in Christ," future punishment, the angels' song, and the danger of preaching God's mercy without His judgment. Several are frank warnings: against confessing other people's sins instead of our own, against the special temptations of middle age, and against covetousness, "a common yet subtle sin." The book ends with his testimony at fifty-nine, a joyful piece on growing old gladly.
The love slave does not fear the master, for he joys in the master's will.
Love-Slaves, Love-Slaves
A note on these editions
These books were restored from scans of the original printings. Heart Talks on Holiness and The Way of Holiness still have scattered misread words, mostly in quoted Bible verses and page headings. The meaning is always clear.
Why read Brengle today
Brengle wrote about holiness without making it sound grim or out of reach. He believed God could make an ordinary person loving, clean and useful, and he wrote to help that happen. Begin with The Way of Holiness, then go on to Heart Talks on Holiness. For other writers on the same subject, see the best Christian books on holiness and on sanctification. All five books are on the Samuel Logan Brengle author page.