W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

shut out from the world lest they might transmit that awful plague, before me. The native pastor with sable face
and foreign speech through an interpreter asked me to preach on baptism, as he expected to follow my sermon
by administering that ordinance to about one hundred of his people. I had no time to preach to them on water
baptism, as I knew that had nothing to do with their salvation, but I gladly accepted his invitation, and preached
to them about the baptism which Jesus gives with the Holy Ghost and fire, and exhorted them to make their full
and eternal consecration and trust Jesus to give it to them. Then their pastor poured the limpid rill on their heads,
thus beautifully symbolizing the baptism Jesus gives when He pours His Spirit on us.
Baptism means a purification. The Holy Ghost is the omnipotent Purifier whom Jesus pours on you when He
baptizes you. “Our God is a consuming fire.” Heb. 12:1. The Holy Ghost is none other than the eternal God.
When Jesus pours the Spirit on you, the living fire goes through you, and how appropriately we sing with the
old Methodists,
“Refining fire go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter Thy life through every part,
And sanctify the whole.
“Oh, that He now from Heaven might fall,
And all my sins consume;
Come, Holy Ghost, on Thee I call,
Spirit of burning, come'.”
So when they call on you and ask you to preach on baptism, always preach on the baptism which Jesus gives
and Paul says is the only one in all the world; the ordinance with water merely being the outward sign. In all
these things note that the great salient point is to walk in the foot-prints of Jesus, meek, humble and lowly, and
like Him, to go about doing good. Again I entreat you, do not argue.
Paul says, “the man of God shall not strive.” Let your zeal culminate in perfect love for God and His people and
all mankind. During the little remnant of my earthly life I will certainly pray that what I have written, pursuant
to candor and veracity in the faithful submission of my biography, and responsive to the importunate appeals of
my thousands of friends, shall not stir up strife. However, I know that the enemy is always manipulating to
clothe the angel, perfect love, with the bear skin so that his Hell-hounds will chase it.
8. THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CONTROVERSY
All my eighteen debates were not with the Campbellites. I had one with a Seventh Day Adventist who twentyfive
or thirty years ago came from New York and began to preach at a rural village near where I now live. That
was before I settled there subsequently to my episcopal appointment to the evangelistic work, which took me
out of the Conference and permitted me to settle in a permanent home. His doctrine was perfectly new, having
never been heard of in the country. The novelty of the man and his doctrine produced a popular sensation and
gave him a splendid hearing by the people.
He proved very pugnacious and belligerent; not only heroically preaching his new doctrine, but challenging all
of the preachers to meet him in debate. As they had no acquaintance with the teaching of his Church, and were
not accustomed to public disputation, they all declined. Meanwhile he began to invite people to join his Church.
He was a persuasive, winning, argumentative and hortatory speaker. There was but one church in the village,
and that was the union of Methodists and Campbellites, both organizations using the same house and alternating
with each other. The people began to join him and quite a revival broke out under his preaching, the fruits of
which were only marked by church-joining, and really made no effort to get people spiritually changed, blessed
and saved, but made church-joining a great salient point. As he was constantly challenging all the Methodist and
Baptist preachers and Campbellites, too, since I had notoriety as a debater, they wrote to me, at that time in a
distant part of the Conference, asking me to come and debate with him, and stating that he was producing a
great sensation there and getting a heap of members; they could not see that it was for the glory of God. I
responded by acceptance. Then we corresponded and appointed the time.
The Seventh Day Adventists, as said above, had hitherto been unknown in all of that country. As I had been born