Spiritual sanctification can only be rightly apprehended from what God has been pleased to reveal thereon in His holy Word, and can only be experimentally known by the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit. We can arrive at no accurate conceptions of this blessed subject except as our thoughts are formed by the teaching of Scripture, and we can only experience the power of the same as the Inspirer of those Scriptures is pleased to write them upon our hearts. Nor can we obtain so much as a correct idea of the meaning of the term "sanctification" by limiting our attention to a few verses in which the word is found, or even to a whole class of passages of a similar nature: there must be a painstaking examination of every occurrence of the term and also of its cognates; only thus shall we be preserved from the entertaining of a one-sided, inadequate, and misleading view of its fullness and many-sidedness.
Even a superficial examination of the Scriptures will reveal that holiness is the opposite of sin, yet the realization of this at once conducts us into the realm of mystery, for how can persons be sinful and holy at one and the same time? It is this difficulty which so deeply exercises the true saints: they perceive in themselves so much carnality, filth, and vileness, that they find it almost impossible to believe that they are holy. Nor is the difficulty solved here, as it was in justification, by saying, Though we are completely unholy in ourselves, we are holy in Christ. We must not here anticipate the ground which we hope to cover, except to say, the Word of God clearly teaches that those who have been sanctified by God are holy in themselves. The Lord graciously prepare our hearts for what is to follow.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Doctrine of Sanctification
Chapter 2. The Meaning of Sanctification
Chapter 3. The Necessity of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 4. The Necessity of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 5. The Problem of Sanctification
Chapter 6. The Solution to the Problem of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 7. The Solution to the Problem of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 8. The Nature of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 9. The Nature of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 10. The Nature of Sanctification (3)
Chapter 11. The Author of Sanctification
Chapter 12. The Procurer of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 13. The Procurer of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 14. The Procurer of Sanctification (3)
Chapter 15. The Securer of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 16. The Securer of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 17. The Rule of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 18. The Rule of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 19. The Rule of Sanctification (3)
Chapter 20. The Rule of Sanctification (4)
Chapter 21. The Instrument of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 22. The Instrument of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 23. The Means of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 24. The Means of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 25. The Process of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 26. The Process of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 27. The Process of Sanctification (3)
Chapter 28. The Process of Sanctification (4)
Chapter 29. The Progress of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 30. The Progress of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 31. The Progress of Sanctification (3)
Chapter 32. The Practice of Sanctification (1)
Chapter 33. The Practice of Sanctification (2)
Chapter 34. Conclusion
