Those who knew my dear father will not need to be reminded what his happy relations were with those who, for longer or shorter periods, were associated with him in ministry or service, as Mr. Mackintosh, Mr. Stoney, Mr. Alexander, and others. He was ever ready to welcome all such, and to esteem them “very highly in love for their work’s sake.”
I have now to make a few more extracts from letters, and in the first three there are references to the visit of Mr. Andrew Millar to Dublin:—
“We are hoping to have dear Mr. Millar, from London, with us on Sunday.
“Mr. M. preached on the Pier, at Kingstown, last evening, to 500 people.
“Grieved I am that you lost acquaintance with dear Mr. Millar. A gracious soul he is, full of heart and service for the Lord. His visit was very acceptable.
“We must, as one says, acknowledge grace, and in order to do so, we must give ourselves to the power of God’s love.
“And what a happy surrender!—to surrender ourselves into the embrace of everlasting love. We must submit ourselves to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10), and what a blessed submission that is!
“The “Lord keep you in His own rest, where He would fain encourage you in every way to dwell.
“I was thankful to you for your account of Mr. Willan’s lecture. I am sure that facts are the great objects, and faith our duty and obedience. God is thus chiefly glorified, for we are thoroughly His debtors, and that is just right. We have not to inspect our conditions or measures, but still to look or to listen, the actings and the attitude that glorify Him. We receive; He gives.
“What more delightful and glorifying to the Lord in this world than the faith that trusts Him! And for a very simple reason: —In this world He has brought forth His resources to answer our need, His light to shine in our darkness, His salvation to meet our ruin.
“We have to know our misery, we have to know His fulness, but we have also to bring them together in the certainty of this, that His glory is concerned in that simple process.
“I see this illustrated in the Centurion, in Matt. 8, ‘I am not worthy,’ said he, ‘speak the word only,’ he added, and all the time he laid his servant at the feet of Jesus. ‘My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy.’
“His fulness fitted to our need. We do not understand Him if we see His fulness, and do not use it. For He came not to be displayed, but to be enjoyed.
“The Lord’s love be known in sureness and sweetness by us!
“I was sitting with Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell, yesterday. A dear couple they are indeed, who have learned much of the self-emptying grace of their rejected Master.
“I saw poor C. at the ‘Incurables.’ His love for Mr. Thompson is intense. A sad object of human suffering he is.
“What will it be, my child, for children of dust and heirs of death, to exchange corruption for glory. ‘We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’
“How the lips of Jesus carried away, for ever, the one suspicion that lingered around the heart of the leper— ‘If Thou wilt’—‘I will.’ And this is the way of His love. The Scapegoat carried away the sin; the lips of Christ, the fear. ‘This is the law of love.’”
The lines in which these last words occur, my father greatly enjoyed:—
“Dig channels for the streams of love
Where they may broadly run;
For love has ever-flowing streams
To fill them everyone.
“For we must share if we would keep
This good thing from above;
Ceasing to give, we cease to have;
This is the law of love.”
“Tell dear Mr. Thompson that I have been writing on Isaac, as a continuation of Abraham, and might have Jacob in prospect, hut I know not whether I shall ever print either of them. A little humble reality, my child, is worth all the show and greatness in the world.
“But Jesus knows each of us, and that too in our peculiar tendencies and temptations.
“Satisfaction in His presence, or Himself, is the divine spring of all graces and services.
“To have it, is to set us in joy when others advance beyond us. To have it, sends us out to serve, though with inferior talents, in the spirit of servants.
“‘I never was happy,’ says one, ‘till I ceased to wish to be great.’20
“To gaze, to listen, to wonder, to worship, to love—to lose ourselves thus—this is heaven in spirit, even now.
“All is closing in, my dear child, but the narrow way leads to a wealthy place. Here it is to he the girded loins (1 Peter 1:13), there the flowing robes. Here is to be the trimmed lamp; there not even sun or moon needed, for the glory never sets.”
The next extract is from a letter written when he was visiting in Galway and Mayo:
“Mrs. Palmer took me to look from a height over the Bay, and a fine view it is, with the Clare Mountains in the distance, and Arran in the Atlantic, just as far as the eye can reach.
“Mrs. R. was one of our company last evening, and she gave me some of her history. For twenty-one years she struggled with the light;21 and she talks much of the wondrous grace of God, that after so long a time took the veil from her eyes. And yet she is humble and affectionate, and nothing of a hard or forward spirit.
“How one does delight in these specimens of God’s own handiwork!
“The Lord bless you with His own choice blessings. May we have that deep, and entire, and hearty confidence in Him, that the thought of His presence may be most welcome, and the desire to be with Him ever present to our souls!
“We cannot long for Him if we are not satisfied of His love to us; and thus, confidence in Him is the spring of the purest, truest affections. His glory in us depends on our confidence in His love.
“A spirit of praise greatly helps to take us off from looking at ourselves. May we have it more richly.”
Writing from the neighbourhood of Yeovil, he mentioned his pleasure in visiting some poor cottagers.
“I have been visiting some of the dear, simple-hearted Christians in the cottages, and been truly edified. I can never forget my visit to Coker; unlettered souls, rich in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, happy in that knowledge though deeply pressed with earthly circumstances, and ready to go and be with Him at a moment’s warning.
“I do not know that I ever paid a visit that has left more blessing on my own soul. I saw the reality of what all of us too much deal with in idea. You will be surprised that several families, after the rent is paid, have not more than 7d. a week to live on, and yet the cottage is clean.
“Many cannot read; and yet the savour of divine teaching is most attractive and edifying.
“What an honour to serve such, in either soul or body! I left a little of my money there, and would that I had a good £20 note for them, for the coming winter is expected to be very severe.
“A young person came with me in the coach this morning a few miles, and sweet witness he gave me indeed that the Lord had been his teacher. It seems to me that there is a breath of the Spirit of God in those parts, moving souls and leading to peace and hope, but with all this much that is ungodly and worldly.
“We had a happy cottage meeting last evening. This rustic congregation is much to my taste; and the simple, earnest affection of the people and their unfeigned faith, is truly edifying and comforting. Many striking expressions drop from them which tell of divine teaching.
“‘You have a hard cough, Betty,’ said a lady to a poor woman. ‘Yes, ma’am, but it is the Lord’s will,’ said she. ‘Some years ago the Lord said to me, “Betty, do this,” and I did it, and “Betty go there,” and I went; but now He says to me, “Betty lie there and cough.” So, ma’am, I lie here and cough.’22
“A poor woman was reminded some time since of the crown that awaited her. She answered, ‘No crown, no crown, only a harp to praise Him for ever.’ This was very sweet. The expectation of His presence and exceeding joy is in the hearts of many of them.
“I was very happy at Reading. I was refreshed by the faith and love of many there, especially one dear old lady of eighty-eight, who is looking out for the Lord with earnest desire every day. ‘Better to depart and be with Christ, dear ma’am,’ said one to her. ‘A pretty deal better, I should think,’ was her true-hearted reply.
“I have been reading the Patagonian Mission with great interest.
“O my child, if we loved Him as we ought, what manner of people should we be? How much those dear servants of His did and suffered for His name! And yet His love exceeds all, and the very best return we can make to that love is to believe and rejoice in it.”
Referring to a hymn he had much enjoyed, he wrote:
“To this lovely hymn I have got a sweet tune, and I have given it to Annie23 here, that you and she may sing it together, and then you and I,—but ere long we shall sing it or something like it in the full joy of Heaven itself—and what ought to be our desire for that day, and our service till that day? The Lord fill us with the fervent, simple affection, the heavenly, unworldly affection that suits His people.”
The hymn referred to is the following:—
“How beautiful the path
Of those who fear the Lord;
Who hear what God their Saviour saith
In His most holy Word.
“They hear and they obey,
And in His footsteps tread;
They love to follow, day by day,
Where His blest feet have led.
“What though He lead them through
A dark and thorny road;
He will their fainting strength renew,
And bear their heaviest load.
“From Him their rich supplies
Of heavenly comfort flow,—
None but the saints can ever rise
To such delights below.
“Like as the sun’s fair light
Shines on to perfect day,
Each step shall be more clear, more bright,
Along their heavenly way.
“Till at the last ’twill end
In everlasting rest,—
Oh what a blissful day to spend
With Jesus’ presence blest.”
Perhaps it was because of having first known this hymn about the time that he was reading in “Hope, deferred, not lost’’ about the Patagonian Mission, that my father seemed afterwards always to associate the fourth verse with the experience of Mr. Williams, the surgeon who joined that devoted band of missionaries, and who, while dying of starvation, wrote from day to day in his journal, of the rapture that filled his heart in the prospect of so soon being with his Saviour.
“None but the saints can ever rise
To such delights below.”
He would sometimes read passages, such as the following, with great delight to friends who might not have known the book:—
“… Should anything prevent my ever adding to this, let all my beloved ones at home rest assured that I was happy beyond all expression the night I wrote these lines, and I would not have changed situations with anyone living. Let them also be assured that Heaven, and love, and Christ, which mean one and the same Divine thing, were in my heart, and that the hope of glory, the hope laid up for me in Heaven, filled my whole heart with joy and gladness, and that to me to live is Christ, to die gain.
“After the trials I encountered on Saturday, and our knocking about was over, the sleep that followed was, I think, the most refreshing that I ever enjoyed, not so much because it was a balmy restorative to my poor debilitated body, but because if ever the whisperings of Almighty love spoke tranquillity to the soul of man, and breathed a continual flowing of divine consolation into the heart, I felt both that night; I was, so to speak, talking with the Lord. Communion heavenly and blessed! earnest of joys to come, of blessings in store, and foretaste of that inheritance undefiled, and that passeth not away, where I shall see Him face to face, yea, behold Him as He is, not even the transparent veil of a divine faith being betwixt Him and me.
* * * * * *
“Asleep or awake, I am happy beyond words and the poor compass of language to tell. My joys are with Him whose delights have always been with the sons of men.”
Almost the last words in the journal were —
“Much more I could add, but my fingers are aching with cold, and I must wrap them up in the clothes, but my heart is warm, warm with praise, thanksgiving and love to God my Father, and love to God my Redeemer.”
It was always a happy time when my dear uncle came from Bridgnorth, where he was rector of St. Leonards for thirty-six years. The strong difference of opinion between the brothers, frankly owned, did not hinder their freedom of intercourse, nor their love for one another; but the link that bound them still closer was the love of Christ—supreme with both. It was a pleasure to them to remember together their early days, and I have often listened with delight while they talked of school days at Taunton, of holidays at “Whyte’s,” and of later days at college.
The following little hymn which my father wrote, may fitly find a place here, for it was composed for a tune which his very dear niece Annie used to play for him during her frequent visits to us (always a happiness to him), with or without her father. She likes to remember, as she tells me, not only his beautiful, grave, and serious words, but also the many times of merriment and fun they had together. It was to her persuasion that he yielded in sitting for his photograph, for he always had an objection to having his likeness taken.
The little hymn is on Song of Solomon 1:7, 2:3-17.
“Shepherd, tell! Shepherd, tell
Where Thy flock feed,
With them there, pastures fair,
Me gently lead.
“’Neath Thy shade gently laid
There let me rest—
With Thine own, with Thine own,
Happy and blest.
“Through the veil little while,
Smile Thou on me,
Then in light, cloudless bright,
Ever with Thee.
“O’er me spread, o’er me spread
Banners of love,
Then I’ll taste angel’s feast
Fresh from above.
“Let me hear, soft and clear,
Thy voice that speaks,
‘Winter’s o’er, night no more,
Morning now breaks! “
“O’er the hills, o’er the hills
Speed Thou Thy way,
Then I’ll rise! cloudless skies!
Reigning in day.”
The following letter is addressed to this niece:
“My dear Annie,—Some few nights before you left us I had a dream. I thought that I was living in the day when the incarnation was expected, and one day, as I walked in the village where I was living, the report reached us that it had taken place. I then thought that another report reached us, that the Lord was coming into our village. Accordingly I set myself in a place which I thought would give me a sight of Him, and shortly afterwards two youths approached the place where I was. A crowd was around them, the smaller of the two was held by the hand of the other. They walked very leisurely towards me. I said to myself that the smaller of them was John the Baptist. The Lord looked very serious, somewhat sad; I could sketch His features, I think, if I had any capacity that way, for He looked at me, and I said to myself, I wonder if He is thinking of Gethsemane and Calvary. He held the smaller youth all the time by the hand, and I awoke, just seeing Him, after looking at me, beginning to move onward again.
“My dear Annie,
“Ever your affectionate uncle,
“J. G. Bellett
“November 3rd, 1858.
“I wrote the above as you requested me, my dear child, but let me say two things to yourself. The Lord bless you, and make Jesus everything to you, God’s great ordinance for every blessing of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Secondly, be well sure that we miss you much. We would fain have kept you longer, for your presence was indeed grateful to us. Aunt’s and Uncle’s full love to you.”
In the year 1857, another dear niece was in failing health, and after my father had been visiting her in Devonshire, he wrote the following letter:
“My very dear Child, — Uncle John can indeed say, that he would be glad to pay you another little visit, as ho did just this time two months ago.
“Your measures of strength or weakness are all in His hand and at His disposal, whose love we are taught to know and rest in. ‘We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’
“I have often thought, my child, that that Scripture is a crowning one. After all the revelation of what God has done for us, there we get what God is to us. He is a dwelling-place, for the conscience may find its ease in Him, and the heart its satisfaction.
“Faith apprehends this, and the soul enters into this rest of God, as that fervent verse in one of my favourite hymns has it:
“‘What in Thy love possess I not
My star by night, my sun by day;
My spring of life when parch’d with drought,
My wine to cheer, my bread to stay;
My strength, my shield, my safe abode,
My robe before the throne of God.’
“We may be conscious that we do not experience and enjoy such truths as we ought, but no matter; our first duty is to believe this of our Saviour, and then to know we shall enjoy it as we ought by and by for ever.
“My love to dear Matilda, I put this under cover to Mamma. Ever my dear child,
“Your affectionate uncle,
“J. G. Bellett.
“Aunt Mary specially desires her love to you and M——.”
The next extracts are again from letters to myself:
“… I never was better I may say, and in this and in everything my journey to England, in the Lord’s sweet mercy, has been happy, save that I feel it long to be from you and dear, dear Mamma. I had an hour with dear Mrs. O’Brien yesterday; she is better, but she knows widowhood indeed. It is well. He has given Himself and His righteousness to us now, His life, His favour, and, by and bye, His kingdom and glory—what more could be done?
“… I have it in my thoughts to write to that sweet Christian woman, Mrs. S——, now in such sorrow and loneliness, severer in some respects than that of our dear Mrs. O’Brien, for the blow was not looked for, and it has felled a much younger tree.
“But it is well, and so will it be found to be in the light of the coming hour. And the Lord allows this to be another link between her heart and heaven—another, but not the principal.
“I was thinking a day or two since, how much the Lord consulted for our health of soul and for the glory of His name, when He commanded us to love Him more than wife or child, friend or brother. He has, it is true, a right to such a place; indeed He could claim and fill no other.
“The supreme place is His by right, whether He seek it in authority or in affection, whether over the conscience or over the heart. But not only this. The very claim when made is for the health of our souls, for it keeps the soul in its due condition, and tends directly and necessarily to set heaven, where He is, in our esteem and desire far above the earth, and thus sets the heart free for the journey whenever He calls.”
In a letter from some place where there had been a large meeting, he wrote:
“This is a much larger place than I had calculated on; a dirty, hustling town. But the earth will shine by-and-bye under the light of His glory, which is His presence, and all that He has said will appear in its bright and precious results for ever.”
In another, which refers to the Indian Mutiny, 1857, he says:
“… Dear Uncle James and Aunt Bessy are I fear increasingly uneasy about James, for the disaffection seems to be reaching Bombay…. How the heart should acquaint itself with other and better scenes.
“Abraham did this, and the simplicity of patriarchal early faith seems to show itself in that.
“The better country was reality to their hearts, their title to it, a reality to their conscience. And the Lord would so have it, in spite of many, many failures on their part.
“I have been morally distinguishing Joseph. There was perhaps less character about him than in Abraham, but there was more evenness of walk in the ways of godliness than in any of them.
“He had not occasional visits and refreshments to help him on, but a more clear and steady witness within, so that he accordingly knew the way and walked in it.
* * * * * *
“I saw dear Miss Locke very happy yesterday; I shewed her how Paul in Gal. 4 proved our sonship, and John, in 1 John 3:2, assumed it. Sweet variety in the ways of the Spirit in dealing with our souls.”
Miss Locke was an invalid belonging to the section of the Brethren that my father had left; but this did not hinder his visits to her; and he was often cheered by her happy spirit, witnessed by a bright face, even though confined to her wheel chair, and often suffering.
In a letter, written during some severe weather, I find the words: “We have had two Arctic days, dear Mierstching had four winters of such days”; and this brings to my remembrance the interest with which my father had just before read a MS. journal kept by Mr. Mierstching, a young Moravian missionary, during four winters in the Arctic regions. He was chosen to accompany one of the Arctic expeditions, and to act as interpreter to the Eskimos, whose language he understood. His captain was, I think, Captain Collinson, and the commander of the expedition, Sir Robert Maclure. The sweet Christian spirit in which the journal was written, as well as the description of winter and summer in those northern regions, gave it a great charm for my father: he read it aloud.
In another letter he speaks of a lecture he had given—
“I could not give you the lecture on paper; but we have now finished Hebrews; but I will give you a little hint of James, which, please God, will he our next subject.
“James is the heavenly moralist: the moralist of the Dispensation. There are but few quotations in his epistle, hut such are moral, not doctrinal; and they are cited to show that the Old Testament morals were not high enough for the heavenly people of the New Testament. So when he refers to the Old Testament saints, he refers to them in their moral virtue, as Abraham and Rahab; and when he refers to a piece of the Old Testament history, he supplies a moral feature untold before; as Elijah’s prayer.
“These marks are very characteristic of the dispensational moralist which James is.
“Jesus has been rejected here; and the great effort of the god of this world is to hide the fact under the garnishing and furnishing of the scene with all the refinements and accommodations that suit the earthly mind. I am as sure as I can be of any truth, that the Church is a heavenly stranger here.”
Referring to the happy death of a young friend, “What is life when death thus closes it in its morning hour. What is death when Jesus and eternal life thus triumph over it?”
I may close this chapter with a few fragments gathered from lectures on passages in the Old Testament referred to in the New, and two verses written by my father will serve to introduce them.
The lines were suggested by an old Latin proverb which greatly pleased him:
“In vetere Testamento novum latet,
In novo Testamento vetus patet.”
“The lights of God which sweetly dawn
In earliest books divine,
As morning hours to noonday lead,
Along the volume shine.
“’Tis but the same though brightening sun
Which clearer, warmer grows;
The clouds which veil’d his rising beam
Fly ere the evening close.”
“There are ‘silent glances’ references, from one part of Scripture to another, that are deeper even than quotations. Instances of these are found in the Lord’s ministry, as though His soul were so impregnated with the Word that He had tacit, quiet alliance with the breathing of God in the Old Testament.
“He knew how to impress on each moment its scriptural character:
“In the case of Nathaniel (John 1) a silent glance seems to have been in the Lord’s mind to Ps. 32, where the secret of having ‘no guile’ in the spirit is disclosed; confession of all secrets which might try to hide themselves before. God, and pardon meeting them. Nathaniel, we might judge, had thus been confessing (the fig-tree always is the symbol of repentance), and the Lord sees him in the light of this Psalm.
“The last verse of this chapter may be another instance. Jacob’s ladder would seem to have supplied the figure there, the ministry of angels now is taught by it—the word should rather be ‘henceforth’ than ‘hereafter.’
“We want to be in company with the Lord Jesus. He had a thousand links formed between His soul and the Scriptures of God. So it should be with us. His references to it were as the glance of an eye familiar with its object.
“The glories of the Word and our alliance with it should be our safe-guard against the violence that will tamper with it.
“The word of John the Baptist—‘Behold the Lamb of God’—was a reference to the shadows of the law—the morning and evening lamb—the lamb provided for shelter and food in the night of Egypt; and perhaps without undue pressure we might also say the ‘ram caught in a thicket’ on Mount Moriah. Each pointed to Him who now stood before John in outstanding living personality. The Lord was putting various, all kinds of honour upon Scripture; by using it in temptation; by fulfilling it to the utmost jot or tittle; and as a Teacher He who was Truth, embodied it, used it.
“In John 19:28 at the last moment there was a scripture to he fulfilled, and because of that He said, ‘I thirst.’
“In the Acts we still find a close and full and intimate interweaving of the parts of the Divine volume.
“A quotation is a divine seal put upon a thing after it has gone forth, as its first utterance was the announcement of the same Spirit.
“We find this wondrous quality in Scripture; it refers behind its proper boundaries, and discloses eternity that is past—it overlaps again its bounds, and goes into eternity before, and thus bespeaks the authorship of the Book. It is a display of multiplied moral wonders; and one Spirit animates it from beginning to end.
“Acts 1 and 2. The Holy Ghost was now the Promise of the Father—the Son was no longer promised, but had come. But before the accomplishment of the promise, the Apostles act upon the dictates of Scripture in supplying Judas’ vacant place; and they do this by virtue of the intelligence communicated by the opening of their understandings to understand the Scriptures; but still, the power from on high had not yet been given.
“The first act of the Holy Ghost, when the time for His descent was fully come, the feast of weeks (when the wave loaves were presented to the Lord) was the contradiction of Babel. God was undoing our ruin—it was the restoration of man to his fellow and to God.
“Peter’s first use of the prophecy in Joel is an instance similar to the Lord’s use of Isa. 61 in Luke 4. There He stopped at, ‘to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,’ the time for the ‘day of vengeance’ had not come: so here, Peter ends with the words, ‘Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,’ because this was the end of his ministry.
“The closing verses of chap. 2 bear witness to the effect of the Pentecostal power. ‘The oil of gladness’ that had filled the Head in heaven, now trickled down to the skirts of the garments. (Psalm 133)
“Chapter 3:21 and 24, though not quotations, bear a most confirming testimony to some of the writings of the Old Testament.
“From time to time, we gather that all the prophets bare witness to the sufferings of Christ: the present interval of testimony to Him, rejected, glorified, under the title of ‘These days,’ and the future glory or ‘Times of refreshing.’
“Chapter 3:25. The promise that all nations should be blessed in his seed was given to Abraham when he received Isaac as it were from the dead: before this it had been in him they were to be blessed. But this signified Jesus in resurrection, (Isaac was unbound from the altar), hence the suitableness of quoting it here.
“We may bring the meridian light of the New Testament to shine upon the Old.
“The Apostles in chap. 4:24-28 in view of the events in Matt, 27 look back to Psa. 2 and find there the foretelling of a certain event which they at once find to be that of Matt, 27. Israel in the latter day will find many passages telling their history.
“Stephen’s face shining was, according to all Jewish analogies, God giving a pledge of glory when He called into a place of trial. ‘The God of glory’ appeared to Abraham before he was called out of his country. Moses was ‘fair to God’ (margin 5:20), before he was called out to suffering testimony.
“There is nothing in Stephen’s speech, if you take away what the Old Testament supplies. What use does he make of these materials? The very use, that the moment he was occupying suggested. He looked at those who had been separated from their natural circumstances in the world, as he himself now was. The heavenly calling was illustrated in those to whom he glanced back. Dispensational knowledge is important. How can we deal with God’s oracles if we are not in His light?
“In Rom. 15:11, the shortest portion of the Old Testament is honoured by distinct quotation. (Ps. 117)
“In 1 Cor. 15 there is an instance of an Old Testament quotation receiving enlarged application, ‘He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet.’ The Psalm goes no further, but the Holy Ghost in the apostle shews death to be one of the enemies, and promises its doom.
“The whole of the Old Testament proceeds upon the principle of that verse (2 Cor. 1:20), ‘The promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him, Amen,’ fulfilled in Him.
“How intimate the intricacies of Scripture one with another! There will often be a tacit reference to an Old Testament passage—without a direct quotation—which is full of beauty.
“In the opening of this second epistle (2 Cor.) there are such, as well as plain references. Genesis 1, Exodus 27, and Judges 7, supply material.
“In chapter 8:15, there is a quotation which has a sweet application. An omer, in the days of the manna, regulated the supply of each Israelite. Now the love of the Spirit is to take the place of the omer, and so dispense the properties of the saints that there should be no lack amongst any.
“Again, in chap. 11:2, 3, the allusion to Eve is very significant. Their minds at Corinth were beginning to be corrupted by someone who came with pretensions in the flesh, and just as Eve was not satisfied with what God had made her, but listened to the lie of the Serpent when he offered her to become even as God; so the Corinthians were not satisfied simply with what Christ had made them, but were seeking fleshly wisdom.
“In Galatians, Paul is the champion of the faith of God’s elect, live they in what age they may. He can call in Abraham and all of them to help, therefore quotations are multiplied.
“In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find what we might expect. The Holy Ghost is here dealing immediately with the Jew, and teaching him by his own Scriptures; therefore quotations are abundant. The epistle teems with them.
“In chapter 1 the Apostle shows that there was One with God far above the angels, and causes it to vibrate from a thousand echoes in the ear of the Jew.
“Psalm after Psalm is brought in to prove this, and he goes on to show that the One who on this earth of ours died for our sins, is exalted to highest glory in heaven.
“They cannot but look at Him.
“Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which should be spoken after, but Christ Son over His own house.
“Moses was to bring in, to be before, the dispensation of Christ; but He gave place to none.
“There are many quotations in the New Testament which are found in little corners of the Old—all equally present to the Holy Ghost.”
20 Dr. Payson, a dissenting minister in America, whose life my father read with much interest.
21 She was an old person who had been a Roman Catholic.
22 I have since seen this little story in a tract.
23 One of his dear nieces in Devonshire.