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One of the results spoken of by Christ in His prayer, and brought about by sanctification, is Christian unity "that they all may be one." There is but one remedy for sectism and bigotry, and it is found in the answer to Christ's petition.
In the course of Christian history it has created a more extensive literature than probably any other doctrine. I mean the subject variously known as Salvation, Redemption, Atonement, and with which the terms Forgiveness, Expiation, Reconciliation, Ransom, Justification, Propitiation, Satisfaction, Sanctification, and such like have been commonly associated.
The prayer that now calls for consideration is that found in 1 Thess. v. 23, 24. He prays for their sanctification "Sanctify you wholly." As already noted, the root idea of sanctification, and of its cognate expressions, "holiness," "holy," and the like, is separation. We see this very clearly in connection with buildings or things which are said to be "holy" or "sanctified."
In Rome, as elsewhere in Catholic countries, it seemed to me that the worshippers were mostly of the poorer classes and were mostly old women, but in the Church of the Jesuits I saw worshippers almost as well dressed as the average of our Christian Scientists, and in that church, whose name I forget, but which is in the wide street or narrow piazza below the windows of the palace where the last Stuarts lived and died, my ineradicable love of gentility was flattered and my faith in the final sanctification of good society restored by the sight of gentlemen coming to and going from prayer with their silk hats in their hands.
Remember that great word, Phil. iv. 13, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." It hath been the usual and ordinary question of believers, How shall we make use of Christ for sanctification?
In the distinction drawn between the sacramental sign and the sacramental efficacy in paragraphs seven and eight, the Protestant distinction between justification and sanctification is involved. The one baptised, becomes in his baptism, wholly dead to the condemning power of sin; but so far as the presence of sin is concerned, the work of deliverance has just begun.
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Let our hearts grow to it, so that nothing but death can sunder the bond." He ceased, and then, amidst a silence broken only by the deep-drawn breath of emotion in the assembly, lifted up his voice in a prayer to Almighty God, full of fervor and feeling, imploring His blessing and sanctification upon the Convention and its labors.
So it appears that chin-music without charity is not calculated to pay very large dividends in the interesting ultimate; that a man may be full of faith, and pregnant with prophecy, and chock-a-block with knowledge and redolent of religious mystery, that he may leak sanctification in the musical accents of an angel and still be "nothing" a pitiful hole in the atmosphere, a chimera circulating in a vacuum and foolishly imagining itself a man.
Who, when He was come, illumined them with truth; and they saw the secret of the immeasurable love of the Word, with the will of the Father, who willed naught but our sanctification. This has been shown us by the Blood of that sweet and enamoured Word: who was restored to His disciples, when the plenitude of the Holy Spirit came.
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