TEMPTATION AND CARNALITY -- (Continued) --

     The matter of properly drawing the dividing line between temptation and carnality is so important that we will devote this chapter to quotations which will be helpful to any anxious inquirer after light.

     The following is from Peck's Central Idea of Christianity:

     "You are doubtless aware that the devil is still your enemy. He is surely not less so from the fact that you have thoroughly rejected him, and consecrated yourselves wholly to the Lord. Indeed, if before the moment of complete salvation he had reason for malice and alarm, he has much stronger ones since. Hence those feelings of dismay, of 'heaviness through manifold temptation,' which sometimes beset you with peculiar power when you are aware of no disobedience, when you have been living closely with God.

     "It is only by bewildering temptations direct from Satan that the holy Christian can be induced to falter in his faith. Confusion of mind brings on darkness and fear, and the word verily believed is not voluntarily trusted -- the Savior accredited, is not freely and fully relied upon. But it is in no sense necessary to fall at this point. Let the soul be alive to recognize the temptation; let it instantly assert that whatever doubts the word of God is false -- that whatever shakes the faith in the present available truth of Jehovah's promise is from beneath; let the eye be fixed upon the sprinkling blood -- the prayer be breathed to heaven for help -- remembering, above all, that blessed word, 'Resist the devil and he will flee from you; draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.'

     "But in connection with this trial of your faith in the efficacy of the blood and the verity of the Word, will come the artful suggestion that you are not sanctified wholly, that you have somehow forfeited the blessing, or that you prematurely believed at first, and hence have been deceived yourselves, and have deceived others by a false testimony. Now we do not mean that every conviction that you are not holy is a temptation, that every fear as to the present or the past is necessarily an ungrounded fear. For doubtless it may in some instances be true that the blessing has been lost, and that it has been claimed where it did not exist. All cases of this kind can be traced and identified, and have their remedy. But apply the tests. We address those who profess the great blessing, and would assist them in guarding against a snare of the devil. Is the thought accompanied by a desire of evil, a desire to seek gratification in some forbidden object, a secret wish that you had never taken the responsibilities of a holy life upon you, that you might somehow be honorably discharged from them? Then you have reason to fear. Whatever may have been your former state, you are now doubtless without the evidence of entire consecration. You can probably remember some instance of yielding when you were tried, of unbelief which grieved the Holy Spirit, and perhaps of some holder form of sin which has shorn you of your strength. Oh, repent, and hasten again to the sacred fountain. May God help you. Redeem your solemn vows before it is too late.

     "But, on the contrary, is this suggestion a source of grief to you? Do you feel that if it should prove to be true, it would rob you of your chief glory; that it is directly against all the desires and inclinations of your soul; that, whether true or false, you would not for the world distrust your Savior or grieve His Holy Spirit; that whether for life or death your all is still the Lord's, and, whatever is the issue, no word of your solemn vow which consecrated all to God shall ever be revoked? Then 'thank God and take courage.' You are walking through the fire, and if there be no shrinking 'when you are tried, you shall come forth as gold.' You deceived in the faith that you are wholly the Lord's, when you have been distinctly conscious of a divine testimony to the fact, and are actually bringing forth the fruits of perfect love! Deceived in claiming 'the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace,' when you rely wholly upon the 'merits of Christ and the promise of His word for this very thing! Deceived in obeying the divine command, 'Reckon ye yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,' when you shrink from the very thought of sin as from deadly poison' and your whole soul is absorbed in doing the will and promoting the glory of God! Impossible. Lie low at the Savior's feet till the storm is over-past. Watch closely the motions of your own spirit, and of the Spirit of God. You will feel the witness in the midst of the temptation, and triumph in the very face of the foe. As to the past, have no argument with the devil. You live by the moment; your present consecration, your present acceptance, your present witness, is all you need. Be content with that; it would be enough to complete the bliss of an archangel. The devil, who would defraud you of your present treasure, would certainly misrepresent all that has been done to obtain it."

     The following is from Wesley:

     "We find' there is very frequently a kind of wilderness state, not only after justification, but even after deliverance from sin. The most frequent cause of this second darkness or distress, I believe, is evil reasoning. If this be the cause, is there any way to regain that deliverance but by resuming your confidence?"

     Again Wesley, in Christian Perfection, says:

     "But does not sanctification shine by its own light? And does not the new birth, too? Sometimes it does; and so does sanctification; at others it does not. In the hour of temptation Satan clouds the work of God, and injects various doubts and reasonings, especially in those who have very weak or very strong understandings. At such times there is absolute need of that witness, without which the work of sanctification not only could not be discerned, but could no longer subsist were it not for this, the soul could not then abide in the love of God -- much less could it rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks. In these circumstances, therefore, a direct testimony that we are sanctified is necessary in the highest degree.

     "Not that I affirm that all young men, or even fathers, have this testimony every moment. There may be intermissions of the direct testimony that they are thus born of God; but those intermissions are fewer and shorter as they grow up in Christ; and some have the testimony both of their justification and sanctification, without any intermission at all; which I presume more might have did they walk humbly and closely with God."