The Way of Holiness

This book has been written at my request. I have read it with thankfulness to God. I feel that in its preparation He has evidently helped and influenced the author, who is an Officer of The Salvation Army, at present labouring in the United States of America, and the writer of two other useful publications on the same subject: namely, Helps

to Holhiess and Heart-Talks on Holiness both of them in our ‘Red-Hot Library.’ What subject can be either of greater importance or interest to our Young People, for whom ‘ The Warriors’ Library ’ is especially intended, than Holiness? The notion that the deep things of God are only open to the experienced and the wise, has, surely, no longer any place among us. It is in the mouths of the babes He has perfected praise; it is those who seek that shall find. whatever their age or history or worldly wisdom may be; and a Full Salvation, so greatly needed by those who have to find their way amid the pitfalls and allurements of youth, is provided for them all in the unsearchable riches of the grace of God. It is the common heritage of every Soldier of Christ.

A holy life is a life given to God and accepted by Him. He is the holy man who lives no more to himself; who lives no longer for his own will, or in the way or spirit of the world, but who lives to God and in His will; who loves and obeys Him, considers and serves Him in everything, and who makes all the common, as well as the sacred, things of his life honour his Lord by doing them in such a manner as pleases Him. To help every reader of this book to understand and experience this is the purpose for which it has been written.

But that purpose will not be attained without sincerity in the reader. Religion is in a very large measure a matter of motive and intention. If you are really as forward

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in the life of God as you can be, if you have set your heart upon an entire conformity to His will, and are seeking it day and night, then, notwithstanding many defects and imperfections, your Master will bless and reward you; but if your weakness and unbelief, your want of humility, and courage, and love are the fruits of your own neglect, and the want of a sincere determination to be a holy servant of God, then you have no more excuse for your falls and failures than have those who commit open and shameful sins.

I call you, then, while you read here the counsels of the Spirit of Jesus speaking through His servant, to make up your mind to live a holy life, to resolve that by the power of the Holy Ghost you will work out your own Salvation, and walk the world in white.

Bramwell Booth.

London: April, 1902.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It gives me great pleasure to know that a Second Edition of this little book is called for. May it prove of even greater and wider blessing than the First Edition, with reference to which I have heard many expressions of appreciation.

W. B. B.

London: November, 1902.

A NUMBER of years ago, before many of the young people for whom this book is written were born, a girl asked me, ‘ What is this Sanctification, or Holiness, that people are talking so much about?’

She had heard the experience testified to, and talked and preached about, for nearly a year, until I thought that, of course, she understood it. Her question surprised and almost discouraged me, but I rallied and asked, ‘ Have you a bad temper? ’

‘ Oh, yes,’ said she, ‘ I have a temper like a volcano.’

‘Sanctification,’ I replied, ‘is to have that bad temper taken out.’ That definition set her thinking, and did her good; but it was too narrow. If I had said, ‘Sanctification is to have temper and all sin taken away, and the heart filled with love to God and man,’ that would have done, for that is Sanctification, that is Holiness. It is, in our measure, to be made like God. It is to be made a ‘ partaker of the Divine nature ’ (2 Peter i. 4).

A spark from the fire is like the fire. The tiniest twig” on the giant oak, or the smallest branch of the vine, has the nature of the oak or the vine, and is in that respect like the oak or the vine. A drop of water on the end of your finger from the ocean is like the ocean: not in its size, of course, for the big ships cannot float upon it, nor the big fishes swim in it; but it is like the ocean in its essence, in its character, in its nature. Just so, a holy person is like God. Not that he is infinite as God is; he does not know everything; he has not all power and wisdom as God has; but he is like God in his nature. He is good and pure, and loving and just, in the same way that God is.

Holiness, then, is conformity to the nature of God. It is likeness to God, as He is revealed in Jesus.

But some one will cry out, ‘ Impossible!

We are poor sinful creatures. We cannot be like Jesus. He was Divine. Show me a man like Jesus Christ.’

Well, now, let us be patient, and keep quiet, and go to the Bible, and see what that says about the matter before we further define Holiness. What did Jesus Himself say? Listen!

I. In speaking of the separation of His disciples from the world, Jesus says, ‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.’ And again, ‘As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world ’ (John xvii. 16, 18.) We are, then, to be like Jesus in separation from the world. Jesus was in the world, but He was not of the world. He took no pleasure in its wicked ways. He was not spoiled at all by its proud, sinful, selfish spirit. While He worked and associated with bad people to do them good, yet He was always separate from them in spirit.

One of our dear pure Rescue Officers went to a house full of bad women to see a sick girl, and while she was there the health authorities declared the girl’s sickness to be smallpox, and they sealed up the place, and the Officer was shut in for weeks among those poor lost women. She was in an evil place, but she was not of it. Her pure spirit was utterly opposed to the spirit of sin that ruled there. So Jesus was in the world, but not of it; and in the same way, holy people are so changed that while they are in the world they are not of it. They belong to Heaven, and are but strangers and pilgrims, doing all the good they can while passing through this world to their Father’s house, their Heavenly home. They are separate from the world.

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