1.
“You are right in anticipating the advance of Popery I am sure. The woman is still to ride the beast. Her day of supremacy may be short, and she will have to yield to the civil apostate or the Antichrist, but she is appointed to have a day, and we live in the opening of it.
“Let our trumpet give a certain sound in the ears of the saints, while it ceases not to sound an alarm in the conscience of the world around. But, beloved, the purity of the house, and the unspottedness of the Lamb ore the table, are not to be surrendered to the desire for larger fellowship. I can wish the labor of others good luck with all my heart. I could wish souls converted at through the preached word, but I could not sit at a table, the company around which have published a letter which in principle says, the Person of Christ is not secured from dishonor there.”
2.
“We must be calm and firm in holding the mysteries of God in this relaxed day of the human mind which makes itself the measure.
“I have in Scripture the light that is above me, that I cannot approach, but in the presence of which I worship. (1 Timothy 6)
“I hate the effort that would unclothe the revelation of God, and lay it naked and bare, that human intellect may run rough across it as its own native territory.”
3.
“I suppose your thought on David and Ziklag is quite correct. He encouraged himself in the Lord his God (1 Sam. 30:66And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. (1 Samuel 30:6)), we are told—and very much of the same simple, single heart that animated him in the day of Goliath, revives in him here. And the decree that he made, so savoring of grace shows this, for I suppose we never more generously act in the largeness and liberty of grace, than when our assurance in God is full and fervent in the soul. (See chap. 30:25.)
“I believe the Lord allowed Ziklag to he burnt as discipline for David, because of his conduct in chap. 27:8-12.”