HOW SANCTIFICATION COMES BY TRUTH.
IN order that truth may sanctify, the mind must be brought in contact with it. As soon might you expect iron to fuse without bringing it in contact with the furnace heat, as to look for sanctification where the Word of God has not, by some process, reached the human understanding. The mind must also be familiarized with the truth in order to gain the benefit of the sanctifying process. If the truth is simply proclaimed in the ear, and passes out of the mind as soon as it passes in, making no more impression than does the musket ball as it glances from the ironside, it will not prove to any extent a sanctifier. There must be adhesion as well as contact. By frequent reading of the Scriptures, and, better still, by treasuring up their contents in the memory, making them the subject of meditation, turning them over and over in the mind until they become the warp and woof of the every-day thoughts, the Word of God will become familiarized to the candidate for sanctification, and will be to his soul like an atmosphere in which there is no impurity. The mind must also comprehend the truth. Its true meaning must be discovered. Whoever neglects the opportunities which offer to hear the Word of God expounded, or to meditate upon what he has heard, will be properly classed with those who are “ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.” The truth, in order to sanctify, must be yielded to, and not resisted. Whoever sets himself, in any manner, to resist the truth, or whoever would evade the just conclusions to which it would compel him, interposes an insuperable barrier to his own sanctification. Prayer for sanctification under such circumstances would be a solemn farce.—William Campbell Scofield.