In Hebrews, — tenth chapter, nineteenth to the twenty-fourth verses, — you have one of those marvelous golden blocks of Bible truths. The Bible is composed of thousands of miniature Bibles. You will find certain blocks of truth in it, and in each block you will find a miniature gospel. So if some poor fellow should only succeed in getting hold of one of these blocks, he would have enough to convert and sanctify and glorify him.

The apostle has four great arguments in the Hebrews on perfection. The first is drawn from the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan, and fills two chapters. The Red Sea represents conversion. The Jordan represents sanctification. And the entering the promised land represents the baptism with the Holy Ghost. When he finishes that argument, he takes up another, the priesthood. Believers now are advanced to an equality with Aaron, in the Old Testament. People sometimes think that Jesus took the place of Aaron, but this is a great mistake. Paul says Jesus took the place of Melchizedek, and that you and I are to take the place of Aaron. That is a strong argument for entire sanctification; we are advanced to the priesthood. Then there is a third argument, and that is founded on the two veils of the tabernacle and temple. The first represents conversion and the second represents sanctification. People say they do not see anything in the Bible about a "second blessing." "Well, there is a second benefit spoken of in Corinthians, and the second veil in Hebrews. After these the apostle has a fourth argument on the two pentecosts, that received at Mount Sinai and the other received on Mount Zion.

Some years ago, soon after I was sanctified, one night after I had gone to bed, the Holy Ghost took the Epistle to the Hebrews and opened it to me in such a wonderful manner that I couldn't sleep for three hours. Some people think anything like that is fanaticism, but I tell you that if you get the Holy Ghost, God means that you can understand the Bible. How many there are who think they cannot understand the deep things of God! God can make the Bible as plain to you as it was to Paul, up to your capacity. The Bible is not merely a book for learned men, but for you, and the Holy Ghost can make it as plain as. the daylight.

Now the first veil signifies conversion. Here is the proof. In chapter nine, sixth verse, we read, " The priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God." That's conversion — the service of God accomplished.. But the high priest only went into the second veil once a year. Now it is into this second veil that Paul wants us to enter; and for which he exhorts us to have boldness, to claim the right, the privilege, of our position before God. There is not a child who is not entitled to enter this veil. No Christian on earth is living up to his privileges or duties who is not entirely sanctified. If you had a million dollars left you, how long would you leave it unclaimed? You would not neglect it. But people neglect God's gifts and go around with a cold, formal experience when Jesus Christ has died and left you a wondrous legacy, and Paul says you have a right to it. You have as much right to go within the second veil as ever Aaron had. " Let us have boldness to enter into the holiest." That means "perfecting holiness." Many Christians make a great mistake in supposing that they cannot get holiness at all till they are wholly sanctified. But it is a doctrine of the Methodist Church that every converted person is partially sanctified. The Bible calls every converted person holy, but not perfect. The apostle says you have entered a holy place, — conversion is holy, — but now he wants you to enter the. completion of this work. How do you enter? By the blood of Jesus. Not by your own good works, not because you have grown better by degrees, but by the simple blood of Christ. Now let me show you the force of the metaphor.

The tabernacle was a parallelogram cut in two. The forward part was the holy place, and in it was the table of shew bread, the altar and the candlestick. A very heavy and thick curtain completely separated this portion of the tent from the holiest of all, in which were the ark, containing the ten commandments, the rod and the pot of manna. Every day the priests went into the holy place, within the first veil, and accomplished the service of God; but only once a year the high priest went within the second veil on the great day of atonement. Now this most holy place was dark inside. No lamp, no candle, no sunlight; all were excluded by the thick curtain. At certain seasons God would blaze out from between the wings of the cherubim, and thus the only light in the second veil was the Shekinah. In the first veil there was a mixedness of light; lamplight and daylight. But in the second veil there was no light at all except that which shone from God Himself.

In a converted state you have mixed light. Is not that true? In a converted state you have mixed motives, mixed love, mixed faith; love mixed with hate, faith mixed with doubt, patience mixed with impatience, the light of the Holy Ghost mixed with your own ideas, and culture and brains and notions of propriety. And that 's the way you live as long as you stay simply in a converted state. And that is where most Christians are. But now mark! In the second veil you leave all mixedness behind, and get where you are either in absolute darkness or else God Himself must enlighten you. When you go in there you shut out the light of science and philosophy and mere brains and carnal reason, and you say, " I am coming alone to Thee, O God; and if Thou dost not enlighten me I am in Egyptian darkness." And that is where God wants you to get, where you will depend on Him, and not upon secondary causes.

David felt so once. When a holy Christian ceases to depend on self, and to depend on the laws of nature, and to depend on his kinsfolk, and rests in God alone, he can pray as David did, when he cried, "Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth"." Brother, God wants to get you where you will be illuminated by the Holy Ghost without any other conflicting light whatever. In this second veil if the Lord does not enlighten you, you are left in Egyptian darkness. That explains some of your experiences at times. You have been sanctified, and yet you were in darkness apparently denser than when you were seeking conversion. Why is this? you ask. I can't see an inch before my face. Exactly, that is because God is getting you away from candles and lamps, in order that you may depend alone upon Him. Those who live in the second veil, if not enlightened by God Himself, are the most ignorant people on earth. Why? Because they have bidden farewell to all candles and lanterns and will-o'-the-wisps of any kind whatever. I would rather trust God in the dark than walk in the light of a human lamp. I would rather trust God in the dark than trust the old Adam in the light. No matter if you are in the dark. Do not be scared. God is there in the dark with you, and the first thing you know He will shine forth.

Another point about the second veil is this: the high priest had to take off his shoes when he went within it, and he went in trembling. Within the first veil he could have the other priests with him, — as long as he remained in the holy place he had plenty of company; but within the second veil he must go by himself. When you get sanctified you make up your mind to follow God alone, whether anybody else will do so or not. When converted you can club up as it were. I have seen four or five young men wait on one another, and finally all start for the altar in company; and after they got there the Spirit worked in their hearts, and they were converted. But when you seek sanctification that won't do. You must make up your mind to say, "I intend to give myself everlastingly and eternally to God's will, and I will go alone if necessary, and by God's grace not slip." You must go alone, as if you were the only one on earth.

It required courage in the high priest to enter within that veil. If he did anything amiss he would be killed. I tell you it made him tremble, going in where nobody could follow him, and where he might be stricken down a corpse in a moment of time. A feeble man who says, "I can't, I can't," will never get to heaven or anywhere. You must say, "I am going and if God wants to kill me, Amen! I am going." People think of the guillotine and the thumb screw and the bonfire when you speak of the difficulty of serving God. But do you know that it takes as much courage to really serve God in Philadelphia as it did in the old inquisition times? To go around in plush parlors and in fine society and let it be known that you are in for entire sanctification is a hard thing. There is hardly one in five hundred who will not turn and minimize under such circumstances. How few serve God with all the heart and never flinch! You may think I am talking too high, but I tell you this temporizing is the great sin of the Christian Church. People are afraid to shout hallelujah! They are afraid of everything religious, afraid to talk in a loud tone of voice. But these very people can go to a theater and see all hell let loose on the stage for half the night, and not faint in the least. I tell you it takes courage to stand up for a clean gospel and a full salvation.

I have had a friend come to me and say: "Brother Watson, you ought to tone down." If I had taken such advice I would have gone into utter darkness. Don't say it is too dark and you are afraid to go in.. Fletcher and Wesley went in, Madame Guyon went in, Brainerd went in. " Oh, but I am afraid, I'm afraid." Afraid of what? Afraid that God might put fire in you? Dr. Steele, one of the most polished men in the world, prayed for sanctification for three weeks, and the thought kept coming up, "Now if God sanctifies you He'll make you act oddly," and he was afraid; afraid he might have to shout in the street cars, or do some other singular thing. At length the Spirit said to him, " Don't you think that God has as good a sense of what is right as you have? Don't you think God knows as much about good behavior as you do? Do you think God will do anything foolish? " And he saw that it was only a temptation, and he let loose everything, and God baptized him with the Holy Ghost so wonderfully that he could hardly eat or sleep for several days. And let me tell you, he has been one of the best behaved men you ever saw since that time, and has not done anything at all foolish.

The high priest did not dare to enter, the second veil without the blood. The lamb was slain outside, and he took the blood and went in and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. And that is the only way for you and me to go in. We must go with the precious blood of Jesus, "through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." Ah, yes! the veil is Christ's flesh, the ark is Christ's body, and in it was hidden the manna, and that is Christ's heart. When you are converted you live on manna that falls on the ground; but when you get into the second veil you eat the "hidden manna," which was put in the ark. That "hidden manna," as it is called in Revelation, is the inner life of Christ.

Yonder is Christ, crucified on Calvary, and here is Mount Zion crowned with its magnificent temple, and in the temple is the veil. It is just three o'clock in the afternoon. Yonder is a Roman soldier with spear in hand, gashing and rending the flesh of the Son of God; and at the same moment the old Jewish priest is going into the second veil with the blood of the lamb he has just slain. Suddenly an angel rent that veil from top to bottom. It meant this: That veil was the flesh of Jesus, and at three o'clock it was rent by the Roman. That was the real; this the figure. And through this rent everybody could look in and see the holiest of holies. In like manner, when Jesus' flesh was rent, every child of God had the privilege to enter, exactly where the spear went in. When you get converted you come up to Christ, and His blood falls upon you; but when you are sanctified you enter into His " interior life," as Upham expresses it.

O friends, how few there are who know the inner life of our Lord! You talk of the beauty of the life of Christ, or the life of Christ, but what do you know about His inner life? Jesus was calm. Jesus was never angry. Jesus was never in a hurry. Jesus was never despondent. Jesus was patient and meek. What do you know about His inner life? If you want to live this inner life you must get away from the noise and tumult of sin within you. What a paradise it is to get away from your sins, and away from your heartaches, and away from your troubles, and away from fault-finding.

What a perfect paradise it is to get away from the noise and deceitfulness of this wicked world, and be hidden in the calm, and the peacefulness, and the everlasting fidelity of the inner life of Jesus. Oh, I wish, dear Christ, that Thou wouldst open Thy wounded side so wide to-night, that some sister or brother might enter in!

Put your soul on the point of the spear, and you can enter where it entered. But you must have a true heart. A true heart is one that is dead set on going through; not merely praying one day and forgetting to pray the next, but one that takes hold of the plow handle and never lets go till the furrow is driven. A heart with no deceitful philosophy, and no double mind, but with one desperate purpose to go through with the whole thing, and to do it now. To such a heart will always be given the "full assurance of faith," and a perfect reliance on Christ alone; and this heart must be " sprinkled from an evil conscience," or cleansed from all depravity.

"Your bodies washed with pure water." Now some of you will think I am explaining this wrongly. That does not refer to baptism at all — not to water baptism. The term " pure water " here means the Word of God. In John 3: 5 we read, " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit "; but that don't refer to water baptism. It means, except a man be born of the truth of God and of the Spirit. The Scripture speaks of God's Word dropping like the dew or the rain. The Word of God is often compared to water. Your inner nature is washed by blood, but your outward life is cleansed by the Word of God. I will show you how to distinguish in this matter. Here is a man who chews and smokes, and they are filthy habits. He seeks a clean heart, and the Word of God comes into that man's mind and commands him to be clean. He lays aside his pipe, and throws away his tobacco. Why? The Word of God makes him do it. That is being washed by the Word. Here is a woman covered with jewelry. Now I like to see a person well dressed, but jewelry is heathenish. God knows how to make people look well. But you say, "I think jewelry makes people look well." Well, now, that is because you are educated wrong. If you could go to heaven and learn from the angels a little while, you would think differently. Well, this woman finds the Word of God condemns her in this vanity, and she puts it away. That is being cleansed by the water of the Word. Here is a man who has been accustomed to take up his Sunday paper after breakfast, but the Word of the Lord comes to his heart that he must give that up; and he does it. He is not cleansed by the blood from that, but by the Word. Do you know that was the meaning of Jesus washing His disciples' feet? Clean water represents the Word of God, and when you wash a man's feet, it means you cleanse his every day walk and manner of life. It was not a streak of old Jewish custom at all, but a streak of practical truth for your kitchen and parlor and home.

Finally, you must testify to the possession of an experience. "Hold fast the profession of your faith." There is one thing that I have not mentioned before on purpose. When the high priest went into the second veil he wore a robe on which were embroidered pomegranates and to which were hung golden bells. If you cut open a pomegranate you will find it has more seeds than any other fruit on earth. It signifies fruitfulness. That is God's idea of a fruitful Christian, and the golden bell was the symbol of testimony. Then the Bible says that the bells must be heard: " His sound shall be heard lest he die." Exactly, and when you get in the second veil you must ring the bell lest you die. You must give your testimony. These old things meant the outward -life to the Jew, but to us they mean the inner life. We must not neglect the " assembling of ourselves together," and as we go to prayer or class meeting we must ring the bell of testimony, and everywhere show by our fruits that we have learned to know the fullness of God's salvation.