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and abundantly above all that you ask or think. That is, He will exceed all that you ask expecting, and He will exceed all that you think He can do for and in and by you. Try Him honestly and with all your heart and in His own way, and send your experience along to the Editor of "THE WAR CRY" that it may be an encouragement for others to go and do likewise. Amen.

The War Cry, No. 27.-JUNE. 26, 1880.

A HIGHER UP RELIGION.

BY THE GENERAL.

IX.

DELIVERANCE FROM SIN.

WE cannot help remarking, with satisfaction and gratitude, the increasing attention that is being given to the topic of which we write. In and out of the Army, by old converts no less than new ones, the inquiry is being anxiously made-Is it so? Is there deliverance for me from my heart plagues, my inward enemies; is it true? Can it possibly be true that I can here, on earth, not only cease from grieving my Saviour but have grace to enable me always to do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And we don't wonder in the least at this spirit of interest and inquiry. The topic once started is certain to arrest the attention, and command the sympathy of sincere souls. In the depths of every spiritual nature there is a yearning-an upward reaching after the fullest possible obedience and conformity to the Divine will-a hungering and thirsting after righteousness that can only be met

and satisfied by the Divine fulness. This is not only a fruit but a sign of the possession of true saving grace. The man who does not realize this longing after entire holiness has good reason, we think, to fear that he has not been made a partaker of the Divine nature. The pious Dr. Doddridge says, "To allow yourself deliberately to sit down, satisfied with any imperfect attainments in religion, and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not desire, nay, as what you secretly resolve that you will not pursue, is one of the most fatal signs we can well imagine, that you are an entire stranger to the first principles of it." And the Holy Ghost says, by the Apostle John, "Every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself even as He is pure."

No wonder, then, that hearts influenced and impressed with heavenly love should be stirred with the tidings of a full salvation, should be moved when the spies come along with the wonderful tidings of the Canaan land of perfect love, flowing with the milk and honey of peace and joy. Especially when the figs and grapes and pomegranates in the shape of the ungainsayable testimonies of saved and sanctified, happy, heavenly people, are spread out before them. Oh! it is then a perfectly natural response for sincere and earnest souls to cry out, "Let us also go over Jordan and secure for ourselves this Divine and heavenly country.'

Now, this is just what might have been expected. To look is to love, and to love is to long after and seek, and, thank God, to seek is to obtain, for verily,

verily it has been said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for EVERY ONE THAT ASKETH RECEIVETH, and he that SEEKETH FINDETH, and to him that KNOCKETH it shall be OPENED."

Now, is it not always just at the point where the soul fully decides to attempt the higher and holier walks of religious enjoyment and usefulness that Satan comes in with his long list of difficulties and impossibilities? As the Israelites were affrighted with stories about the impassable walls of the cities, and the lofty stature and grim fierceness and terrible weapons of the Canaanites, at the very verge of their inheritance, just so multitudes of the Lord's children of later times have been met and terrified on the borders of another and far brighter land of promise with difficulties-difficulties material, difficulties human, and, alas, difficulties professedly Divine.

My comrades, my brethren, we have already granted, and we grant again, that there are difficulties, stupendous difficulties, difficulties in the shape of the world, the flesh. and the devil, difficulties in the people of God, and difficulties, at first sight, in the very book of God itself; but, as difficulties vanished when these sons of Abraham of old boldly faced them, in the name and strength of the loving Jehovah, so, ye sons of believing Abraham, shall these difficulties, whether diabolic, human, or Divine vanish before you, when you leave the wilderness, cross the Jordan of your unbelief, and boldly enter upon the inheritance purchased and promised, and held out to you.

FOR ARE NOT ALL THINGS POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH?

Now, we will, as far as in us lies, dispose of these difficulties. And we think we shall, perhaps, meet these negatives, and doubts, and fearfulnesses by showing, from the Holy Scriptures, that it is our Father's good pleasure to give us this inward kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy, and to give it us now. And we will take

I. THE ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE.

Now, in entering upon this part of our subject, we are bewildered with the profusion of proof. It is difficult to make a selection of texts. The whole Bible, in spirit and in letter, seems to say "Be ye holy." Ask yourself, dear reader, What does this Book teach me? What sort of a saint does this Book show me I ought to be? We are afraid multitudes of people read their Bibles in an abstract sort of way, to find out what God has done in the past for the world, or what he is going to do with it, or, at most, what good things He has to bestow upon them in the future, rather than to inquire, which must be the most important of all, What kind of a saint does this book show me I ought to be and what sort of service ought I to render to God and my fellow men? My brother, take your Bible and use it as a glass, as a double glass, which it most certainly is. A glass which, on one side, will reveal to you WHAT YOU ARE, and on the other side will, with equal fidelity, show you WHAT YOU OUGHT TO BE.

Let us take a glance at it.

And with regard to

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