W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
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And dwell where Jesus is.<br />
“Thou art the sea of love,<br />
Where all my pleasures roll;<br />
The circle where my passions move,<br />
And center of my soul.<br />
“Not all the harps above<br />
Can make a heavenly place,<br />
If God <strong>His</strong> residence remove,<br />
Or but conceal <strong>His</strong> face.<br />
“To Thee my spirits fly<br />
With Infinite desire,<br />
And yet how far from Thee I lie!<br />
O Jesus, raise me higher<br />
THE COMMENTARIES<br />
I must mention two whom God decisively used to develop a new epoch in my life. The one is Rev. M. W.<br />
Knapp, and the other Brother J. L. Hunton, a preaching layman of Hillsboro, Texas, and now at Orange,<br />
California. I must ever glorify God for using Brother Knapp to launch me into authorship and Brother Hunton to<br />
cut me loose from my native land and give to me the Old World in addition to the New for my field of labor. I<br />
do owe a debt of gratitude to these brethren as God's humble instruments in the development of this great and<br />
interesting epoch in my life, which I can never pay.<br />
I had read the writings of Brother Knapp and he had read mine and we had corresponded, but never met till he<br />
migrated to Cincinnati in 1892, then of course we had him come over into Kentucky to preach for us in our<br />
Holiness Convention, when I, for the first time, looked into his inspiring face.<br />
I was a little surprised to find him twenty years my junior, as his trenchant pen had impressed me with his<br />
seniority.<br />
I had written my “Baptism,” “Sanctification,” “Christian Perfection,” “Victory” and “Holiness or Hell,” all of<br />
which had received a wonderful circulation and appreciation, infinitely beyond my anticipation, and God had<br />
used them as pioneers of the Movement, especially throughout the great South, whither its coming was a score<br />
of years more tardy than in the vast North. Those books are all distinguished for their brevity, perspicuity,<br />
vivacity and Biblical orthodoxy; meanwhile the didactic phase of them is of infinite value to the Biblical<br />
student, at they teach the great truths of regeneration and entire sanctification, so tersely, clearly, experimentally<br />
and demonstratively that the blessed Holy Spirit has used them in leading multitudes into the happy experience<br />
of full salvation. Besides, they are all pre-eminently characteristic of multum in parvo, much in little, and<br />
consequently are well adapted to the busy millions of Christians who are hungry for this delectable full salvation<br />
and, like myself, are seeking it blindly, as I did for nineteen years because I did not know how to get it. If either<br />
of the above books had reached me I would have entered Beulah Land in my blooming youth, instead of waiting<br />
till life's meridian. Brother Knapp had read and circulated all of those books. I simply wrote them in order that<br />
they might help me preach this great salvation and reach multitudes whom I would never have the opportunity<br />
to meet face to face and dispense the living Word.<br />
I also wrote them especially to leave with the people to whom God, in <strong>His</strong> providence, had permitted me to<br />
preach the Gospel, in order to establish them in the faith, so that their experiences would not evanesce through<br />
the chicanery of the intriguing foe. I have seen wonderful fruitfulness which, in the good providence of God, has<br />
supervened through the media of these straight, clear, scriptural and irrefutable presentations of God's blessed,<br />
saving truth, revelatory of the glorious privileges and invaluable inheritance which He hath bequeathed to <strong>His</strong><br />
humble, faithful and teachable children.<br />
The holiness people had been exceedingly clamorous a full dozen years for me to write commentaries<br />
expository of the New Testament. This conception had originated from my constant habit of teaching the