...observations and ramblings from a learner and traveler...

03 April 2011

regarding sanctification, the 'putting off' and 'putting on'

In Parables of the Cross, I. Lilias Trotter shows herself to believe in Keswick sanctification at its very best, and the first quotation below is what the best of the early Keswickians believed as best as I can tell... though it is certain that they don't always sound like they believe that "It is both."  It is probably the best practical summary of Keswickian sanctification that I have seen.

But is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed: there is never a moment's reversal of the decision.
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Once allow the manifestation of His grace in these poor hearts of ours to be a miracle, and there is no need to defer it vaguely. How many of the wonders wrought by Christ on earth lay in concentrating the long processes of nature into a sudden act of power. The sick would, many of them, have been healed by degrees in the ordinary course of things; the lapse of years would have brought about the withering of the fig-tree; the storm would have spent itself in few hours. The miracle in each case consisted in the slow process being quickened by the Divine breath, and condensed into a moment.

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