"IF ANY MAN SIN."

According to Dr. Steele's exposition of the tense readings of the Greek New Testament, the Holy Spirit has made a clear distinction between committing an isolated act of sin, and going on in a course of sinning. The first epistle of John was written for such as were cleansed from sin, and to show them how to live a life of purity and perfect love. Yet the Holy Ghost, foreseeing the facts of life, and knowing the liability of even sanctified souls to fall into sin, has written, "If any man sin [even a fully sanctified man sin], we have an advocate with the Father."

But in this passage it is worth noting, that the text does not refer to a course of continuous sinning, but to an isolated act of sin, what James calls being "overtaken in a fault," not in a continued series of faults. According to the Greek tenses in which the words are written they would read, " I write these things unto you [who are cleansed from all unrighteousness, i. 9], that ye commit no act of sin; and if any man commit an act of sin, we are constantly having an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ; and He is the propitiation for our sins. " 1 John ii. 1,2. So that this passage contemplates isolated acts and not a voluntary course of sinning. Those who are overcome and fall again into acts of sin after their purification, will inevitably belong to one of the three following classes.

I. Some, when they find that they have sinned, get discouraged and give up their hope of retaining the experience. Satan rushes in upon their mind with all sorts of perversions of truth, and disconsolate suggestions, robs them of faith and lacerates their spirits in the most painful manner. Sometimes they hold on to the blessing instead of the Blesser, and because the blessing has momentarily been forfeited, they think that the Blesser is forever gone. God is so jealous, He will allow no one to make a holiness idol out of the blessing of holiness; hence, some lose the blessing, by failing to steadily embrace the Blesser. Some think that a condition of heart-purity brings a species of infallibility; then if they sin, they jump to the conclusion that they never had it, and that all confessors of purity are deceived. Others say, if they commit one sin they are liable to commit a hundred more, and what is the use of trying to walk the high way. Others consent to surrender the life of holiness, thinking they will be safe on some low plane that admits of some sinning. Some one way and some another lose their sword and shield, and after having once entered the cleansing fountain, are entangled again in the bitter bondage of skepticism or discouragement.

2. A second class is formed of those who sin after their sanctification, and are then tempted of Satan to so theorize and explain it away as not to deeply and penitently admit that it was a real sin. They think if they admit the reality of their sinning, that they must abandon a life of holiness. While thus debating with self, on the one hand feeling they can not give up the great pearl of sanctification, and on the other, not willing to deeply mortify self by frankly admitting the sin; at this point the devil comes as an angel of light, in the guise of a profound theologian, and proposes to so explain the Bible, and so palliate or explain away the sin, as to make it and sanctification agree with each other. He will endeavor to enroll the sin as only an infirmity; if it is too glaring for that, he will suggest the theory that we are sanctified only up to our knowledge, that there is an un fathomable amount of depravity in us, and that sanctification consists only in wiping it away as fast as it comes to view; or he may introduce the abominable wolf in sheep's skin doctrine of imputed holiness, and blandly convince the poor soul, that it may be full of sin and yet so covered over with the holiness of Jesus that God takes no account of the sin. I verily believe, that the miserable heresy of imputed holiness was in vented at this point to lull the conscience of somebody who had sinned and was trying to cling to a state of unimpaired holiness. Will not this explain why it is that so many who confess to being purified, sooner or later, fly the plain old track, and adopt some error that either cripples or destroys their experience and usefulness? Satan gets them to accept a theology of his framing, in which a little sin and much holiness can somehow be packed together in the same bundle.

3. The third class of such as commit sin after their sanctification, are they that take the Scripture way of admitting to self and God the whole sad fact of evil, and by self-renunciation and faith return speedily to their infinite Owner and Healer. They follow the example of Noah, Moses, David and Hezekiah. They know both the strictness and the unmeasured sweep of Divine grace. They will not let failures dis. courage them from being established in holiness, nor will they take any theory of holiness by which a little sin can be smuggled along with it. If they are wise, they will waste no time in idly debating as to whether they have lost the blessing or not; they will spread it all before God, renounce self in every point, commit everything just as it is, to God, renounce all discouragement from the past, and all anxiety about the future, and accept Jesus, just as John saw Him, as a lamb newly slain, to cleanse from all sin now.