QUESTION. When wholly sanctified and baptized with the Holy Ghost can we at all times control our thoughts, or must we ever say with the Psalmist, " I hate vain thoughts "?

ANSWER. Well, there are two questions in this. We may have wandering thoughts, and yet not have what the Psalmist calls vain thoughts; for the Psalmist means by vain thoughts those thoughts that are sinful, and they are to be put away from us — hated, despised, rejected, cast out. The full salvation does not put us where we have perfect control over our thoughts, over the laws of mental association. It does a wonderful amount toward delivering us from wandering thoughts, but we must distinguish between an evil thought and a thought of evil. That is why our good Calvinist brother thinks that we cannot get delivered from all sin in this life. He has been taught to believe that all thoughts about evil are sinful: whereas, you may have a thought about evil, and yet be cleansed and be freed from having evil. thoughts. An evil thought is an evil that lies in the heart and that you entertain in the heart; but a thought about evil is a suggestion flashed upon y our mind by. anything you see or anything you hear, or by the law of association. So that in your prayers there may be flashed into your mind, by the law of association, a thought about evil. An evil thought is a boarder that you entertain in your heart, and give him lodging and boarding; but a thought about evil is a tramp that knocks at the back door of your being and says, "I want to come in." Now you cannot prevent tramps from coming around, but you can prevent entertaining boarders.

QUESTION. You must have the assistance of God to do it?

ANSWER. It is God that does it. But then you can have a clean heart, perfectly free from sin, if you do have wandering thoughts. They needn't be thoughts in the heart. No person can perfectly control the suggestions of the mind, but as years go by divine grace will assist to that end. That is the work of growth in grace. The work of cleansing the heart is instantaneous, but the work of getting control of your mind is the work of growth. Some people have ten times more control of their minds than others have. Some people have a hundred times more imagination than others have. People who have dull imaginations, and who have a cold, logical mind, are not troubled much with wandering thoughts, but people. who have very vivid, energetic, strong imagination are much more bothered; so that if some people had as much trouble with their thoughts as others have, it might make them backslide. We can all have clean hearts, and to a certain extent we can control our thoughts. We can govern our thoughts by choosing the lines of meditation, but nobody has perfect control over the law of association in this life. I don't think anybody ever has professed to get to that state, except, perhaps, it may be a few fanatics that did not know what they were talking about.

QUESTION. Suppose that one who has a clean heart sins. What effect does that have upon the original depravity? Does it reinstate it in him?

ANSWER. No; it doesn't reinstate the original sin that they get cleansed from, — not necessarily, — any more than man who has the yellow fever twice has got the same fever he had before. He has got the fever, but not the identical fever he had before. The depravity is depravity, just like smallpox is smallpox. It doesn't matter whether we have got the same smallpox we had before. If you get wet in the rain, you don't get wet with the identical raindrops you did last week, but you are wet just the same; and depravity is depravity, just the same as rain is rain. A great many people have these fine, ethereal, hair-splitting notions about depravity, and people say sometimes, " If I get a clean heart, where does my depravity go to?" Well, if you lose your headache, where does your headache go to? You tell me where your headache goes to, and I will tell you where your depravity goes to.

QUESTION. What is the difference, if any, between the baptism of the Holy Spirit and sanctification?

ANSWER. Well, in one sense there is not much difference, and in another sense there is a difference. The literal meaning of the word sanctification does not imply the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The word sanctification refers to the negative side, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost to the positive side. When you build a house, after the house is made you wash it and cleanse it, clean out the shavings and make it clean; that is sanctification. Then you put in the furniture, and that is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The word sanctification refers to cleansing, purging, washing, removing depravity: the baptism of the Holy Ghost is the diffusion of the presence of God in all the heart and mind after cleansing. So that the one is positive and the other negative. The two make up one sphere. One is one hemisphere and the other the other hemisphere, but they both go together. God always fills a clean heart. The demonstration may not always be the same, but God always fills a purified nature.

QUESTION. Isn't it the Spirit of God that sanctifies?

ANSWER. Certainly; that is what I have been saying, and the baptism of the Spirit sanctifies. But the Holy Ghost purifies us in order that He may live in us. The Holy Ghost comes to us in conviction. Every converted person has the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit cannot occupy the heart as He wants to until, with our submission and our faith, He gets us where He can cleanse us; so that the Spirit of God does all the work from the time we are convicted until we get safe home to glory. It is the Holy Ghost that convicts us and converts us; it is the Holy Ghost that shows us our depravity; it is the Holy Ghost that cleanses the heart upon our submission and faith, and the Holy Ghost fills the heart with love after He purifies it.

QUESTION. What is meant by the "son of perdition," spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:3?

ANSWER. Well, it is popery. It means popery, though the word popery does not exactly convey all the meaning. It means ecclesiastical rulership; ecclesiastical, domineering rulership, that gets into the physical kingdom of God and then puts on the authority of God and goes to bossing God's people. It means a domineering power in the Church that takes the place of God and imitates God and dictates the terms of salvation. It is the devil in the church trying to counterfeit.

QUESTION. Isn't faith healing in the atonement, and do not Isa. 53:5 and Matt. 8:16, 17, imply the same?

ANSWER. Of course divine healing is in the atonement; and yet there is a stress being pat on the healing in the atonement in such a way as to make it look as if there were only two things in the atonement. Divine healing is in the atonement just exactly like your bread and butter is in the atonement, just exactly like the guardianship of angels is in the atonement. Jesus Christ sends guardian angels to watch over every one of you, and there is not a Christian on this earth that has not had the guardianship of angels, and there is not a person on this earth around whom God does not put a special providence. Now the providence of God is in the atonement; the guardianship of angels is in the atonement; the provision for your natural life is in the atonement; the apostle says we have the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come, and they are both in the atonement. Everything we get on this earth that is good is in the atonement, and but for the atonement we would not receive any blessing in this world or any other world. All the blessings that infidels are now getting are in the atonement. Infidels would not have the privilege of living and enjoying life if it had not been for the atonement. Now it is in that sense that the apostle says that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men, but especially of them that believe. He is the temporal Savior of all men, sinners and saints, but He is the special salvation Savior of those who believe. Jesus Christ takes care of poor sinners. He keeps them alive, or they would drop dead. If it were not for the atonement, there would not be anything on this earth but hell. And so we owe to the blood of Jesus Christ every blessing of this world and every other world. It is all in the atonement. The banner of the atonement spreads out over both worlds.

QUESTION. Do you consider that there is any special danger, then, when they talk about healing being in the atonement?

ANSWER. The danger is in limiting the atonement. Christian people should learn to receive everything they get from Jesus Christ. " When I say the atonement, what do I get?" — "I get my salvation and my physical healing." — "What else? " — "Well, I don't get anything else." It conveys the idea, somehow, we get all the other mercies by chance. No, friends, we get everything in the promises. There are thirty-two thousand promises in the Bible, and those promises cover every condition and every case that can be imagined in this world, and every single promise is secured by the atonement. The death of Jesus secures not only our salvation, but secures all our blessings. Jesus Christ would never have come to this world except for the purpose of dying.

QUESTION. Would you say that if we seek physical healing through the atonement it will be just as sure to us as if we seek salvation through the atonement?

ANSWER. No, sir. God has not promised to answer all cases of prayer for healing unconditionally. The promises for healing are in the Word of God, and so there are other promises, thousands of promises. The only infallible thing that we are warranted to look to Christ for is salvation. God will in some way answer the prayer of people who pray for healing, and, although they are not healed, their prayer will be turned in some way to their benefit; just as people pray for their unconverted friends, and the prayer is not heard or answered as far as they can see — in some cases after they are dead, and perhaps in some cases the people are not saved after all. But, nevertheless, God in some way answers the prayer to their salvation. In some way all prayers are answered. But there are people who have prayed for healing as earnestly as any mortal on earth can pray, and they have not been healed yet. Others pray a simple prayer and are healed. The rule of faith healing is not the same as the rule of salvation. Some of the best people in the world, the holiest people, are not healed; and some people who are comparatively shallow in their piety, whose piety is not of an extraordinary type, are healed of physical diseases. You must never, while you live, measure salvation by any physical blessing whatever. You may have success in business, and some people who are losing money may be just as pious as others who are making money. You cannot measure piety by success in business, or by good health or brains, or by anything on this earth. Religious prosperity, spirituality, is not measured by any physical measure.

QUESTION. When a person prays for divine healing and is not healed is it because he has committed some sin or wrong?

ANSWER. Not necessarily.

QUESTION. One person prays a simple prayer and is healed. Another person prays just as earnestly and is not healed. Is it right to say that person, because he was not healed, had committed some sin and God was angry with him?

ANSWER. Not at all. That is a great mistake. If we entertain that thought, it just opens the door to all sorts of fanaticism and to all sorts of misjudging people. There was Dr. Sheridan Baker. I have never known a saintlier person on this earth. He was bent with rheumatism for the last twenty years of his life. Dr. Baker had scores and scores of people healed, wonderfully healed, in answer to his prayers, during a course of thirty years, and hundreds of times he would have friends pray for him, and he would himself begin to pray for healing; and he said he wouldn't pray three words, for the moment he got his mind upon God he forgot all about being healed. He never had a desire to pray for healing; he never was permitted to do it. He was anointed, but he was not healed. But he had scores and scores of most wonderful cases of healing in answer to his prayers. With St. Paul it was the same way. He wasn't healed. Scores of people were healed through him. So you cannot judge of any person's standing by whether God heals him or not. Where God is going to heal a person, as a rule, there will come upon him a conviction: The Lord will heal you if you ask Him. I saw a lady once with spinal disease, who could hardly move hand or foot. She said that in the night something said to her, The Lord will heal you if you ask Him! Bishop Taylor and myself prayed with her, and she said, " I shall be healed in a month! "The Lord seemed to impress upon her the day and the hour, When that hour came, she arose and dressed herself, and she became perfectly healthy. I saw her some time after this and she was not half as spiritual then, with her health, as she had been on her bed of suffering, All sickness comes from the fall, just as mental idiosyncrasies come from the fall, just as all mental stupidity comes from the fall. All sickness of body or mind comes from the fall. It is not Scriptural, it is dangerous, to teach that every time we get sick it is the result of our own sin. It puts the saints of God into the worst kind of bondage; makes them think, — Now the devil has got me; I am sick, and if I am sick I have committed some sin. The people who teach that kind of doctrine get the best of people into awful bondage.

QUESTION. Isn't it directly contrary to the Word of God?

ANSWER. Yes; it is not Scriptural.

QUESTION. Don't you think that is often the reason why God doesn't hear — because they wander from the path?

ANSWER. It might be the case. There is more we don't know than we do know.

QUESTION. If it were best for us, should we be healed?

Answer. I cannot even say this. The longer I live, the more I know and the less I know. There are some few things I know; I have learned a few things. But as to the whys and wherefores, God deals with every human being differently. No two people in six thousand years have lived the same life, and no two have had the identical shape to their lives. God has a mold for every one, and He has a dealing with each person that He does not duplicate with anybody else. The principles are the same, the nature the same, the love of God the same, the great rules of divine truth the same, but the application is different.

QUESTION. What relation has faith to healing, and isn't there such a thing as the cultivation of faith for healing?

ANSWER. No.

QUESTION. Doesn't it grow by exercise?

ANSWER. Faith does not grow by exercise, except, perhaps, in a modified sense. Faith has a regular history to it, just like anything else has. Everything has a beginning and a perfecting. Faith is produced by a divine promise being apprehended by the soul and received. We have the faculty of faith when we are born; we have the power to believe; but the power of faith comes into exercise when it is brought into contact with the appropriate promise. Almost everybody has the power to love somebody when they are born into the world. When they grow up and find the right object they are very apt to fall in love. They have the faculty to love, but when it came in contact with the proper object it then opened itself. So we have got power to believe, and when that comes in contact with the object it is put in operation. God has given us these promises. We are to grow in faith by feeding on the promises. The more you feed your faith on the promises the more your faith will grow. But faith does not grow by exercise or by speculation. Faith grows by coming in contact with the great promises of God, and by testing the promises. You test one promise and find it is true; then you test another; and by the time you have lived a good many years and tested a good many promises your faith will be strong.

QUESTION. Is any prayer answered that is not a prayer of faith?

ANSWER. No, sir; it is not properly a Scriptural prayer. A Scriptural prayer is a prayer of faith; and yet a great many people pray a prayer of faith who do not think they have got faith. Sometimes people think they haven't one atom of faith and they sink in despair, and at the very point where they despair and where they think they haven't a bit of faith, right there is the very point where they have got the faith that removes mountains and saves their souls. Just as I was thinking I was lost and going right down to hell, right there God saved me. The soul has not sense enough to understand all that is going on inside the soul, but God has. Faith is not so much an exercise as it is an attitude. Faith is not so much an effort as it is an attitude. When the soul gets into the attitude then God responds. Sometimes a soul gets into the attitude when it hardly knows how it got there. Faith isn't like swinging your arms or wagging your head. It is not an exercise. It is more properly a ceasing from exercise. It is resting right back on the eternal rock of God's Word and getting in the attitude.

QUESTION. Can we do efficient work for God without full salvation?

ANSWER. We can do efficient work for God without full salvation, but we cannot do sufficient work without full salvation. There is a difference between efficient and sufficient. A boy goes out hunting and kills one squirrel, and he is efficient. But he has not killed enough to supply a boarding-house with squirrels for breakfast. He has not a sufficient supply. If he had had more guns and shot more squirrels, he would have had a sufficiency. So converted people have a measure of God's Spirit and they can work for the Lord. They can preach the gospel and do mission work and do a good deal for the Lord, but they cannot do sufficient work. Jesus says of the very people in the Church that are converted and are bearing fruit, the very people that are now doing the work of God, My Father will cleanse and sanctify them that they may bear more fruit! And no Christian on this earth can do his best for God without full salvation; no preacher can preach his best without a clean heart under the baptism of the Holy Ghost; and if they can do as well as they do without the baptism, how much more could they do under the baptism of the Spirit! It takes God's Spirit to make us sufficient. It is God in us, filling us, that makes us sufficient to do His will.

QUESTION. How may we know we are divinely guided?

ANSWER. There is such a thing as divine guidance, thank the Lord! If it were not so, we would not have been here. There is a divine guidance, and God's guidance is practically all-sufficient for our light. There are three ways by which God guides us. There are three elements in divine guidance. God the Father is called the God of providence, Jesus is peculiarly the Word of God; so that God the Father guides us, Jesus guides us, the Holy Ghost guides us, and all three work as one. We are guided by the providence of God, by the Word of God, and by the convictions of the Holy Spirit. I do not say impressions, because that does not go deep enough. I say convictions. An impression may be upon your nerves or intellectual nature, but a conviction strikes clear down to the conscience. The Holy Ghost can put convictions upon us that are as deep as our very souls. And so God leads us. The Lord never makes one of these things to conflict with the other. The Holy Ghost never guides us contrary to the Word, the Word never guides us contrary to Providence, and Providence does not guide us contrary to the Word or Spirit; so that these three elements of divine guidance are always harmonious. Some years ago a lady was at the altar seeking a clean heart; and Satan was there, in addition to all the other tests that came up in the mind, for he may project something into your mind on such an occasion, some test. My wife was speaking to her, and she said, "There is one thing in my way. Something seemed to say to me, 'Will you go to Africa?' " There have been more people that have had to go to Africa than anywhere in this universe. I had to go to Africa. We all have to go to Africa. Everybody that has got sanctified for the last five years, almost, has had to go to Africa. "Well," my wife said, " let us see about it; you know God does not ask anything foolish of you; tell me your circumstances." She had a husband and four or five children and a house to care for. Said my wife, (who has more common sense than I have,) " Do you think the Holy Ghost will ask you to do a thing that God's providence wouldn't allow of your doing? Will God's Spirit run against God's providence? And do you think God will ask you to go off to Africa, and leave your children and husband?" Well, she didn't see how He could. Then said my wife, "It may be that in twenty years from now that God may want you in Africa, and God may turn things so you can go. You just simply say, 'Yes, Lord, I will go when you send me,' and settle it. All God wants is your heart loyalty. God would rather have your perfect heart loyalty than have Africa, or China, or anything else." She said, "Yes, Lord, I will do anything you say," and she got through. That was the end of Africa. When you want to be divinely led, simply consult God's providence and consult God's Word and consult the convictions of God's Spirit upon your heart, and the Lord, if you are humble and teachable, will see that you are properly led.