Do you want to know what holiness is? It is pure love. Do you want to know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is? It is not a mere sentiment. It is not a happy sensation that passes away in a night. It is a baptism of love that brings every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus (see 2 Cor. 10:5); casts out all fear (see 1 John 4:18); burns up doubt and unbelief as fire burns flax; makes you ‘meek and lowly in heart’ (Matt. 11:29); makes you hate uncleanness, lying and deceit, a flattering tongue, and every evil way with a perfect hatred; makes heaven and hell eternal realities; makes you patient and gentle with the disobedient and sinful; makes you ‘pure … peaceable … open to reason, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere’ (James 3:17), and brings you into perfect and unbroken sympathy with the Lord Jesus Christ in His toil and travail to bring a lost and rebellious world back to God.
– Samuel Logan Brengle –
