Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also re-blog many of the old posts.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Did John Wesley Teach a Second Definite Work of Grace?

QUESTION: Our Methodist preacher is saying that Wesley did not teach entire sanctification as a second definite work. What do you say?

ANSWER: I suspect this preacher must have been the author of "Historic Doubts Respecting Napoleon Bonaparte," an elaborate and apparently conclusive argument proving that no such man ever lived, that he is a myth, the outgrowth of the military spirit of the French. This preacher's next assertion we may naturally expect to be that John Wesley is a historic myth, the product of Methodism. This proposition is just as capable of proof as that he did not persistently proclaim with tongue and pen Christian perfection or entire sanctifieation as "the second blessing." This he did from near the beginning of his long ministry to the end. There is just as much propriety, in the light of his Journals, in asserting that he did not preach justification as that ho did not preach entire sanctification as a distinct, subsequent work.

Steele's Answers p. 159, 160.

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