Continued Rev. Professor Dr. Warfield: “Though he fails to rise to the height of the Scriptural supernaturalness of sanctification…, Mahan’s reference of it to the Holy Spirit…nevertheless recognizes the supernaturalness of the actual process of the sanctifying work…. The Scriptures
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do indeed speak of ‘growth in grace’…. Mahan [too, quite rightly,] introduces a warning against what he represents as an extreme position taken up by some in his camp.”
Warfield, however, then went on: “The most amusing instance of the inconvenience which the Scriptures he [Mahan] is compelled to depend upon…, is afforded by…Acts 19:2f. This is so much the main passage on which he relies in proof of his cardinal contention — that the baptism of the Spirit is a subsequent benefit…. So eager is he in his employment of it, that he adduces it even in the preface to his book on The Baptism of the Holy Ghost.”
