REGENERATION AND SANCTIFICATION
8. While the physical birth emblematizes regeneration, it is equally true that physical circumcision typifies sanctification. The Jewish law was to circumcise eight days after birth, illustrating the fact that we should get sanctified about eight days after conversion, thus giving a little time to receive light on inbred sin and intelligently seek its removal. John Wesley has a powerful sermon on the Circumcision of the heart, preached from
Deuteronomy 30:6: “I will circumcise thy heart, so as to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength, that thou mayest live.”
Here we see that the circumcision of the heart is necessary to perfect love, which is the condition of spiritual life and admission into heaven.

20. “At which time Moses was born, and was beautiful unto God.” The E. V. does not give you the clear translation of this beautiful passage, which reveals that Moses was beautiful in the divine estimation, being doubtless the finest looking baby the world had ever seen. [Of course, Adam and Eve were perfect specimens of humanity, but they never were babies.] Amram and Jochebed are not only charmed with the transcendent beauty of their baby, but divinely impressed that he is a messenger sent of God. Therefore, having faith in God, they manage to hide him in their home three months.
Now the imperial soldiers have become so rampant searching the Hebrew premises and killing the boy babies, they see to their sorrow they can hide him no longer. Trusting God, they resort to a stratagem, manufacture the ark of bulrushes, water-proof with the wonderful Egyptian cement, deposit their precious baby in it and commit him to the dubious waves of the Nile, about two hours before day, thus turning him over to the providence of God. His unsuspected little sister Miriam, who afterward became a flaming holiness evangelist, now only seven years old, follows along the bank, keeping her young eagle eye on the floating ark.

21. “He having been deposited, the daughter of Pharaoh took him and adopted him unto herself for a son.” Contemporary Egyptian history says that this daughter of Pharaoh, the heir to the throne in the blood-royal, her father now very old, was then a widow without an heir, her husband having fallen on the battlefield of Thebes, while leading the Egyptian armies against the Ethiopians, during that long and exterminating war of several generations, in which the Egyptians and Ethiopians, the two greatest nations on the earth, desperately contested the metropolitanship of the globe, Egypt finally triumphing. Such was the anxiety of the young queen to transmit the kingdom in her own family, that seeing the foundling, charmed by his beauty and smitten with most profound sympathy by his crying, she at once conceives the idea of his adoption to herself for a son, and thus feigned maternity, circulating the report and sending away her two maid-servants, who alone knew to the contrary, to regions unknown, never again to be seen; receiving the baby in her arms, calling a nurse through the loving little sister, Miriam, who proved to be none other than the loving mother of the dear little foundling, now, with her husband and four-years- old Aaron and first-born Miriam, moving at once into a tenement house on the royal premises; Amram receiving the appointment of horticultural superintendent.

22. “Indeed Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: and was mighty in his words and deeds.” God needed in Moses the highest scholarship in the world to reveal the Bible, write the Pentateuch and legislate for all mankind. Therefore He avails Himself of the Egyptians, whose philosophers and magicians stood at the head of the world’s learning and became the educators of Moses, believing him to be the son of their queen, the heir of the blood-royal and their future king. Of course, they lay under contribution all the scholarship of the age to educate their bright and promising young king, flattering themselves that in Moses Egypt would have a Pharaoh eclipsing all his illustrious predecessors of the royal line. To be “mighty in his words,” or as the Greek says, “in sciences,” was to be a great intellectualist and scholar, such as Moses doubtless was, reaching the very acme of the world, and little dreaming that God in His wonderful providence was preparing him to be prophet, legislator, leader and mediator of Israel, thus treading an apex hitherto reached by no human being. To be “mighty in his works” in that age meant to be a great military man. This is abundantly corroborated by Egyptian history, which certifies that Moses led the Egyptian armies in the Ethiopian wars, rising to pre-eminence as a military chieftain. Thus the statement in the Pentateuch that he received “an Ethiopian woman for a wife” is accounted for. During the memorable siege of Thebes, the beautiful and magnificent Ethiopian capital, the rival of Memphis, the capital of Egypt, the daughter of the Ethiopian king ever and anon gazed from the high towers of the royal palace far out over the wall, beholding with admiration the military evolutions of the Egyptian army. Recognizing their grand, beautiful and majestic leader, she falls in love with him at a distance, sends him a messenger, proposing to maneuver the opening of the gates and the admission of his army into the city, on condition that she receive his hand in wedlock. It works out to a charm; magnificent Thebes is captured by the Egyptian army, and the long war winds up with victory perched on the banner of the Pharaohs. Of course she becomes the wife of Moses. Having either passed away by death or returned to her own country, she was not his wife at the time of the above quotation, as he was then the husband of Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro.

23. “And when the time of the fortieth year was being fulfilled to him, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel.” Here culminates a crisis, more copiously revealed in Hebrews 11:24-28, where it is said that he
“refused to be called the son of Pharaoh, preferring to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.”
This clearly confirms and corroborates the preceding. As Egypt was an absolute monarchy, the king owned the country, all the people and all the money. Thus, in the capacity of king, Moses had it in his power to own all the “treasures of Egypt.” History says that after be had passed his thirty- fifth year, having for many years, in the capacity of royal regent, relieved his queenly mother of governmental burden and responsibility, now that she is venerable with years, knowing the political intrigue on all sides among the consanguinity of the blood-royal, and so anxious to carry out the cherished enterprise of her life, i. e., to transmit the kingdom to her son Moses, at the same time in constant fear lest something might happen and prevent his receiving the crown, she resolves, though out of harmony with royal precedent, to have Moses crowned king before she passes out of life. With great reluctance he finally yields to her importunity, and, pursuant to Egyptian custom, is passing through a whole lunar month of preparatory disciplines and vigils, conducted by the magicians in the secret orgies of their subterranean chambers, beneath the great pyramids. The time of inauguration is drawing nigh, he sees a vision at the third watch of the night, in the subterranean chamber of the magician; behold! he sees the soldiers dashing hither and thither ransacking the mud-tenements of the Hebrew slaves, hunting up every boy baby and knocking his brains out. He sees a father and mother with all expedition fixing up a bulrush ark, putting their baby in it, committing it to the waves. It floats down the Nile, pursued by the little sister on the bank, is picked up by the maid-servants at day- dawn, brought to the queen in her bathing-house, adopted, mother and father called to nurse. Then it is revealed to him that he is that baby.
Besides, a supernatural voice rings out, “Thou art not an Egyptian; thou art a Hebrew, a son of the despised race of slaves.” Then Moses, responsive to the heavenly vision and the divine voice, to his unutterable surprise for the first time in life finds out his mistake, that he is not the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, but the son of his faithful Hebrew nurse and the pious old gardener, who all their lives had showed him so much kindness, but of course never intimating to him his Hebrew origen, as this would have blighted all the hope of his future kingdom. Now arriving at day-dawn, entering the royal palace he runs to his venerable queenly mother: “Oh, mother; though you are not my mother, yet I love you with all the possible love of a mother’s son; yet you are not my mother, but I am the son of that Hebrew nurse and belong to that race of slaves.” This to his royal mother is a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky crushing all her hopes. Verily, the trouble she had feared all her life has come like a flood. Now arises the crisis mentioned in the above quotation. She importunes him to keep the whole matter thus revealed in the heavenly vision a secret, with her and him alone, go on with the inauguration and be crowned king. “Oh, mother, in that case I would reign under a falsehood, as you know that the Egyptians would never tolerate a Hebrew on the throne. They would hurl me down and elevate the nearest of the blood-royal.” “Why? Joseph, the Hebrew, was king of Egypt.” “Yes, but he reigned as a Hebrew and not as an Egyptian, which will never again be tolerated since the degradation of the Hebrews in disgraceful bondage. Oh, mother, you know I can never reign under a falsehood. I must be true and cast my fortunes with those despised slaves.” History says when Moses thus refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, receive the crown of Egypt, bade his royal mother adieu and hastened away to join the toiling slaves, that she quickly died of a broken heart, succeeded in the throne by the nearest of the blood-royal, unfortunately very profligate. How wonderfully God maketh the wrath of man to praise Him! While Pharaoh was doing his utmost to prevent the insurgency of Israel by killing their leader, of course making sure of it by killing all the boy babies, behold! the very one he was ransacking all the land to kill he is keeping in his own palace, feeding him on the fat of the land, paying his own father and mother enormous wages to nurse him, and bestowing a million of dollars on the magicians, priests and philosophers to give him the finest education ever received by a mortal man, thus conferring on him every qualification needed for the very work he had turned loose his whole army to prevent by killing the babies. We have myriads of historic repetitions of this same folly this day. The very sons and daughters cultured by the opposition to fight the holiness movement are everywhere getting sanctified and leading the embattled host to victory. The life of Moses, one hundred and twenty years, is divided into three periods of forty years each, so wonderfully contrastive either with other. The first forty years in the royal palace of the proudest kingdom beneath the skies, actually living at the top of creation, emblemating the mediatorial Christ on the throne of heaven before He condescended to become “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” to redeem the world from sin, death and hell. We now reach the second period of Moses’ wonderful life.

34. “Seeing I have seen the affliction of my people, who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and come down to deliver them; now come hither, I will send thee into Egypt.” The divine economy, God’s method with man and the idiosyncrasies of salvation, is the same in all ages and dispensations. Why did not God deliver Israel out of bondage at an earlier date? Because they had not gotten so tired and sick of their bondage as to make them groan under the task-masters and cry to God for deliverance. The task-masters are evil habits. The reason why the people are not delivered from them is because they are not so sick and tired as to groan under the intolerable burden of sin and cry piteously for deliverance. Whenever you get so awfully tired of sin as to loathe and groan at its very mention and cry unto God for deliverance, He is sure to come down and deliver you. We live in an age characteristic of superficiality in every respect. This grievous superficialism has almost obliterated the very memory of the mourner’s cry and groan, and the wrestling altars, which in former years I everywhere saw and heard. Good Lord, bring back the old- time power.

42. “And God turned away and gave them up to worshipping the host of heaven,” i. e., the sun, moon, and stars. I do not wonder that they worshipped the unparalleled splendor of an Egyptian sky, where clouds are never seen, rain never falls, and the sun in his glory accumulates a splendor and grandeur inconceivable in these occidental lands of cloudy skies. Four thousand years ago Heliopolis, a compound word which means City of the Sun, stood on the banks of the Nile, literally constituted of palaces so gorgeous and monuments so splendid as to reflect the sunbeams in all directions from every conceivable point of the compass, so as to exhibit a splendor and glory as if a thousand meridian suns had evacuated Apollo’s chariot and come down to show the world their unearthly glory. The most of those gorgeous monuments and splendid statuary have been carried away. I saw a number of them in Rome. However, one majestic red granite monolith [ I. e., all one piece], too ponderous for manipulation and unsusceptible of disintegration, still stands in its majesty, a vivid reminder of their wonderful Heliopolis, and “monarch of all he surveys.” In Coptic language the sun is Osiris, and the moon is His, under which names they were extravagantly worshipped by the Egyptians in the days of Israel.

43. “You took up the statue of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, images which you made, to worship them; and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.” Moloch is the Tyrian word and Remphan the Coptic for the Hebrew word Baal, all meaning the sun-god, which was so extensively and extravagantly worshipped by the polytheistic idolaters of that day. They would heat the hollow brazen image of Moloch and lay an infant in his arms, thus offering human sacrifices, which continued till the days of Josiah, during the periods of apostasy and idolatry in Israel. Here Stephen certifies that Israel practiced these idolatries, carrying with them the little images throughout all of their peregrinations in the wilderness. When they crossed the Jordan, Joshua required an abandonment of all this idolatry, administering to them the rite of circumcision, symbolical of their right to sanctification, during their great holiness campmeeting held at Gilgal, immediately after crossing and before they set upon the conquest of the land. Unfortunately, after arriving in Canaan they never did utterly expurgate the land of idolatry, hence the surviving Canaanites proved a snare to them, leading them into idolatry and superinducing the sad and mournful downward trend of four hundred and fifty years of backsliding, recorded in the book of Judges, developing long-established alienation from Jehovah and culminating in their awful Babylonian captivity. Nothing but entire sanctification saves people from idolatry. That is the distressing trouble in the churches of the present day; they are full of idolatry. They worship water-gods, day-gods, creed-gods, sect-gods, money-gods, gods of wood and stone in the form of a fine edifice, and gods of flesh and blood in the form of big preachers and other phases of human leadership. The Holiness Movement is God’s call to the people to forsake idolatry. Oh, how perniciously the popular clergy fight for their sectarian gods! As we see here in Israel the awful ultimatum of persistent idolatry was Babylonian captivity, even so this day the masses of Christendom are captured and enslaved in spiritual Babylon.

45. Jesus, E. V., in this verse, should read Joshua, as in R. V. The solution consists in the fact that Joshua is a Hebrew word, which means Jesus in Greek. The great general reason why Moses could not lead Israel into the promised land was because of his symbolic character as the law-giver of Israel. [To be sure, he blurred his experience of sanctification by impatience at the waters of Meribah, but soon regained lost ground.] If Moses had led Israel into Canaan, it would typically involve the conclusion that we can be sanctified by good works, i. e., through the law, which is utterly impossible; hence it would not do for Moses to lead them in. As Aaron, the high priest stood at the head of the officiating clergy, he could not enter the land lest the dogma of sanctification by church rites, loyalty and obedience to the ruling ministers could not sanctify you. Miriam, the prophetess, represents the fire-baptized holiness evangelists. If she had entered the land, it would have involved the conclusion that red-hot holiness preachers can sanctify you, which is utterly untrue. As none but Joshua, which means Jesus, could lead them in, it settles the matter in the symbolic theology of the Old Testament, that none but Jesus can sanctify a soul.

STEPHEN’S MARTYRDOM
54. The officers of the Sanhedrin, clerical and laymen, are torn all to pieces by the straight, awful truth enunciated by Stephen. They get so mad that they grit their teeth. I witness to you that I have seen the same under similar circumstances, i. e., leading preachers so mad at the holiness people that they turned pale and gritted their teeth, only lacking the cooperation of the civil arm to do unto the Lord’s faithful witnesses just what these preachers and church officers did to Stephen.

55. “And being full of the Holy Ghost and looking up to heaven, he saw the glory of heaven, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” The normal posture of Jesus in heaven is sitting on the mediatorial throne. This is an extraordinary occasion; heaven enjoys the exquisite privilege of witnessing the death of the first Christian martyr. Now see Jesus vacate the throne, walk out to the heavenly battlements, calling the attention of the enraptured hosts. Archangels ceased to play on their golden harps, the cherubim hushed their triumphant song, the seraphim paused amid the triumphant shouts, while all heaven with Jesus look down and see how His martyr can die. The judgment hall, where Jesus, the apostles and Stephen were tried for their lives, stands on Mt. Zion, about six hundred yards from the city wall on the mountain brow, which is there entered by David’s Gate. As a criminal must not die in the holy city, and they have condemned him unanimously, under charge of blasphemy, because he said he saw heaven open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, which was true, but they did not believe it, in a similar manner the magnates of the fallen churches at the present day accuse the holiness people of blasphemy and are awfully shocked at our testimonies, and we would really fare like Stephen if the stars and stripes did not float over our heads, and gunboats roar from the seas. Therefore, laying violent hands on Stephen and dragging him out through the gate to the brow of Mt. Zion, beyond the wall, as the Greek says, “they continued to cast stones on him.” Pursuant to the law against blasphemers (Deuteronomy 17), the witnesses must testify against him and cast the first stones. Thereafter the people indiscriminately continued to cast stones on the poor victim. There is a striking double significance in the laying down of the clothes at the feet of this young man called Saul. They only saw in it the fact of his leadership in the martyrdom of Stephen, which was true, arising from the simple fact of his constitutional pre-eminence among men, since he was in every way an extraordinary character, born to rule, whether in the kingdom of Satan or God. We have a most striking secondary meaning, legitimately attachable to this notable transaction, i. e., the succession of the dying martyr, of which no one present had the slightest dream, Saul himself of all most alien from such a Conception. Oh, how strikingly prophetical was this laying down of their garments at the feet of Saul, destined in the miraculous providence of God to take the place of the dying martyr, receive the converting grace and sanctifying power which flooded Stephen’s countenance with an unearthly radiance, misunderstood and falsely interpreted by Saul and his clerical comrades as vile contrariness and devilish stubbornness; even to come back to Jerusalem, enter those Hellenistic synagogues, there preach and witness precisely as Stephen had done, and only escape the same bloody fate at the hands of that identical murderous rabble by providential intervention, which simply prolonged his life till he could finish his work and then die, like Stephen, a martyr for Jesus.

59. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This is another one of the innumerable Scriptures which knocks the bottom out of soul-sleeping, proposing to brutalize you by taking away your immortal soul and humbugging you with the silly delusion that you consist only of this material body, making even heathens blush for shame; for, walking in the light of nature and the Holy Spirit, without the precious Bible, even they believe in the soul’s immortality. Here we know that Stephen’s immortal spirit was a distinct unity, existing independently of his body, because it left his body under the rock-pile and went up to live with God in heaven, like the disembodied spirit of every dying saint.

60. “And putting down his knees he cried with a great voice, O Lord, charge not this sin to them.” Here we see that Stephen knelt among the stony shower and prayed for the preachers and church officers who killed him, thus illustrating the normal posture of prayer, i. e., on the knees. Heathens, Mohammedans and Roman Catholics all kneel It is awfully chilling and discouraging to see great Protestant congregations sitting up during prayers. I know nothing about such religion; the first touch of conviction I received from God brought me to my knees, and I have stayed there. They are the hardest part of my body. I realize no inconvenience in remaining on my knees while the hours glide away. The proud Protestant congregations should be rebuked by the poor Pagans, Moslems, and Romanists, all kneeling [though I fear in most cases actually worshipping devils], while they sit up during prayers. If the crowd is too dense to kneel, you certainly can get down some way and join in the prayer to God. Standing is a much more adoratory posture than sitting, and should be adopted when kneeling is impracticable. No wonder the Holy Ghost has forsaken the churches, when they throw into His face the wholesale insult of keeping their seats, gazing about and looking up like ducks at the rain during prayer. Kneeling or prostration is the Bible posture of worship. Here we see the spirit of true saintship manifested by Stephen, not only in forgiving, but praying for them with his dying breath. “And saying this, he fell asleep.” Our Savior said of Lazarus: “He is not dead, but sleepeth, and I go to awaken him.” From these Scriptures we find that the inspired phraseology as applied to God’s saints is not death, but sleep, clearly and conclusively revelatory of the fact that even the bodies of God’s children shall never die. Hence we should not talk about dying, but going to sleep in Jesus in case that He tarrieth. The Bible clearly reveals the significant fact that the body is as immortal as the soul, and will never die. If He tarrieth, my body, which, even now at the age of sixty-five, needs nearly twice the sleep requisite for nervous vigor twenty years ago [this the normal effect of mental and spiritual labor], will ere long become so sleepy that it will lie down in the grave and sleep so soundly that nothing but the archangel’s trumpet and the resurrection earthquakes can awaken it. Even bears, reptiles and many other animals go to sleep when winter comes on, and wake no more till spring, thus symbolizing the sleep of the body throughout the winter of death and the glorious waking on the resurrection morn. Hence it is impertinent to record the death of God’s saints. Under the glorious light of the gospel dispensation it is proper to say, as in case of Stephen, “they fell asleep.” If He tarrieth, soon the holiness papers will report that the author of these pages is dead. Reader, please correct the mistake. Even now I have in my soul the resurrection power, destined to reach this frail body, investing it with immortality. Hence if He tarrieth, I will soon like Stephen fall asleep in Jesus, enjoying a short though delectable nap on the bosom of Mother Earth, awaiting the resurrection trump which will awaken me from my slumber.