W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

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