ABSTRACT
Whereas in the twentieth century the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a distinct experience was to become widespread under Pentecostal influence, it was entirely otherwise in the nineteenth. The term was applied by Methodists to entire sanctification; by others, as this passage illustrates, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was identified with regeneration or sanctification, or else, as the author urges, it was restricted to apostolic times. It was the teaching of John Wesley that the converted Christian should go on to seek entire sanctification, or full consecration, which was conceived as a decisive second stage of experience. According to Wesley, those who were fully consecrated committed no known sin and so their state was one of Christian perfection. William Huntington, William Gadsby and their followers believed that deep conviction of sin was essential for the possession of real religion. The Peculiar People were a revivalist sect founded in Essex by James Banyard, a former Wesleyan local preacher.
