Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. In 1768 Mr. Wesley visited Glasgow, where the greatest part of the members had found peace with God. Three years before Thomas Taylor had been sent there, and had for his first congregation two bakers' boys and two old women. He kept off preaching, and his hearers increased also to two hundred, but for want of means he never kept so many fast days in his life. He hired a room, formed a society, and paid a precentor fourpence for each service to lead off the psalms, but the money falling short, he had to dismiss both the psalms and the precentor; but he left a society of seventy members. One of these was old Janet, of whom John Pawson records this anecdote. Meeting the minister of the kirk she had long attended, she was thus accosted: "Oh, Janet, where have ye been, woman? I have no seen ye at the kirk for long." She replied, "I go among the Methodists." "Why, what gude get ye there, woman?" "Glory to God!" said Janet; "I do get gude; for God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven me a' my sins." "Ah, Janet, be not highminded, but fear; the de'il is a cunning adversary." "I dinna care a button for the de'il," said Janet; I've gotten him under my feet. I ken the de'il can do muckle deal, but there is ant thing he canna do." "What is that, Janet?" "He canna shed abroad the love of God in my heart; an' I am sure I've got it there!" "Weel, weel," said the minister, "If ye have got that there, hold it fast, Janet, and never let it go." Benefit of assurance: — Latimer writes to Ridley, "When I live in a settled and steadfast assurance about the state of my soul, methinks I am as bold as a lion; I can laugh at all trouble; no affliction daunts me; but, when I am eclipsed in my comforts, I am of so fearful a spirit, that I could run into a very mouse-hole." Parallel Verses KJV: And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. |
    |