The following morning, I happened to take up a tract by John Fletcher, of Madeley, in which I read, that at a breakfast party on the occasion of a wedding, to which he was invited, just in the middle of idle and frivolous conversation which was going on, he was constrained to rise up and say, “I have three times had an experience of joy and liberty, which I believe to be Sanctification, and it has passed away; now that it has returned again, I take this opportunity to testify.”  The company were all struck with amazement; the power of God was present; and the festive gathering was turned into a meeting for prayer and praise.  I took warning from this tract never to withhold my testimony on this subject.

Soon after this, I was holding an afternoon Bible class in another part of the parish; we were going through St. Luke’s gospel, and had come to the fifth chapter; I said with reference to the miraculous draught of fishes, that the fish had been swimming about in their native element in all quietness and freedom, till they came in contact with a net, and it came in contact with thorn.  Observe, I said, three things:  1.  They are caught in the net. 2.  They are drawn out of their native element. 3.  They are laid in the boat at the feet of Christ.  So it is, where people are caught in’ the Gospel net—­this is conviction; they are drawn out of the state in which they were—­this is conversion; but they are not yet in the state in which they should be, this is why it is so hard to hold them:  they ought to be drawn to Christ Himself, for this is the ultimate object of catching souls; the one thing needful is to be brought to the feet of Christ.

I intentionally abstained from using the word “Sanctification,” though I was endeavouring to typify the experience of it, and to contrast it with conversion.  As I went on speaking, a woman in the small assemble put up her hands and began to shout and praise God, “That is Sanctification!” she cried; “I have it!  I know it!  Praise the Lord!” There was a great stir the class; some cried, and some asked questions.  One woman, who was more advanced in general knowledge and experience than most of the others declared, that she did not believe in Sanctification, for she had known so many who professed to have it, and had lost it.  “Lost what?” I said, “you cannot lose an experience; the joy of it may depart, and certainly does where people rest on their feelings instead of the fact, on the effect, instead of the cause.”  She confused the sanctification of the believer, with the effect it produced on him.  The Spirit which works sanctification in our souls can keep us in it, if we continue to look to Him, instead of looking at His work, I said to her, what I have said ever since to all who are inclined to argue on the subject:  Believers too often dispute about Sanctification, in the same manner as the unconverted do on the subject of Justification.  It is not worth while for those who know, to contend with those who only think.  I told her to go home and pray about it and ask the Lord if He had anything more to give, to let her have it.