A Word from William

"Come, let us pursue this interesting and important inquiry. How far can God save from sin here? This question can be satisfactorily answered only by hearing what the Lord says on the subject and, having listened to the Scriptures, you may then with propriety and advantage listen to the testimony of those who boldly profess to have an experience on the subject.

"What says the word of the Lord? What people say -- whether they be learned or unlearned, official or unofficial, or anything else -- if they speak not in harmony with the direct and plain teaching of the word of God, they speak not the truth on this subject, whatever they may do on any other. And as the opinions of other men are not our standard, neither are their lives. If A and B say I cannot be saved from sinning -- if they say I must go on in unbelief and unfaithfulness and evil tempers unto the end of my earthly days, if they say I cannot love God with all my heart and be loyal with simple obedience to my heavenly King -- I ask A and B for their authority. If they confess that, after some two or three disjointed, misapprehended texts of Scripture, they rely upon the fact that this unholy, inconsistent, Spirit-grieving life is the common confessed experience of Christians, and therefore nothing better is possible to me, I reject their authority. I won't accept the backsliding experience of any number of people as the standard of religious attainment for me. It is not what men are, but what God wants them to be; not what they actually possess and enjoy of purity and peace and power, but what Christ, the blessed Christ, with his agony and Blood bought for them; what the Father freely offers, and what the pleading, long-suffering Holy Spirit waits to bestow. If I live at Ephesus, am I to conclude that it is impossible for me to keep my first love with its self-consuming, soul-saving power? Or if my lot is cast in Laodicea, am I to teach that it is the right and acceptable thing before God and men not to be enthusiastic, not to be be eaten up with the zeal of God's house, not to be burning hot, but to be miserably, contemptibly lukewarm in His service?

"O my brethren, my comrades in The Salvation Army, to you I write, Beware of this measuring yourselves with yourselves. It is not wise. Endless loss and sorrow and backsliding have been caused by it, contenting ourselves with being as good as other people. And yet many will do it, no matter how warned or cautioned they may be; and therefore let us hurry up to the high levels of attainment, so that instead of dragging men down to Ephesus and Laodicea we may lift them up to Mount Beulah, and draw them on to that blessed highway, the highway of holiness."

-- William Booth