“God has been pleased to ordain them to wrath, that his justice may be satisfied and glorified.”
“David, who made thee such a God as this? Where did thee learn about him? How can thee love him?”
“It is in the Confession of Faith. And, oh, John Priestly, I do love him! Yes, I love him, though he has hid his face from me and, I fear, cast me off forever.”
“Dear heart,” said John, “thee is wronging thy best Friend.”
“If I could think so! Oh, if I could think so!”
“Well, then, as we are inquiring after God, and nothing less, is it not fair to take him at his own word?”
David looked inquiringly at John, but made no answer.
“I mean, will it not be more just to believe what God says of himself than to believe what men,–priests,–long ago dead, have said about him?”
“I think that.”
Then, one after another, the golden verses, full of God’s love, dropped from John’s lips in a gracious shower. And David was amazed, and withal a little troubled. John was breaking up all his foundations for time and for eternity. He was using the Scriptures to grind to powder the whole visible church as David understood it. It was a kind of spiritual shipwreck. His slow nature took fire gradually, and then burned fiercely. Weak as he was, he could not sit still. John Priestly was either a voice in the wilderness crying “Peace!” and “Blessing!” to him, or he was the voice of a false prophet crying “Peace!” where there was no peace. He looked into the face of this new preacher, frank and glowing as it was, with inquiry not unmixed with suspicion.