12, Herbert Place, Dublin, October 4, 1842.
I have received both your kind and welcome letters, my dear sister, grieved to hear that dear Charlotte had been so seriously ill. The Lord bless her abundantly. He has laid her aside; but He has deeply introduced her to the heart of His people. And your dear mother so ill also.
I have a good deal in MS. on the Canticles, and just enclose some meditations which were lying here, copied out by someone; they appear generally correct, but I have not read them over. I do not see any moral value in determining whether the rock or the water out of the rock only followed through the desert. I would not much entertain the inquiry. I believe that Galatians 3:2727For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27) more fixed my judgment as to baptism than any Scripture, for it told me that baptism was the intelligent act of a believer, the personal act of one's own faith, so to express it. I do not see in 1 Peter 3:2121The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 3:21) anything to give the mind a pause. For while it owns that the answer which the conscience is enabled to give, when it reads and receives the value of the resurrection of Jesus, is the great thing, still it implies the putting of a believer's body under water. It seems to me to take that as the granted form of the ordinance.
We have been here all the summer, but in wonted tender mercy we have generally been very well.
I heard of beloved Mr. S.... having been at Hereford. Ah, dear sister, how conscious the soul is of its own leanness. "My leanness, my leanness," how unfeignedly may the heart utter, and the richer, simpler grace of others oft brings this to view.
Farewell, my dear sister, believe me, ever yours affectionately in our Lord Jesus,
J. G. B.