To collect money of Jacob Leedy in Columbiana County, Ohio, for Peter Nead.
To collect money of John Garber, of Montgomery County, Ohio, for Solomon Garber, of Rockingham County, Virginia. I am to let John Garber have the note if he pays $150.00.
Tuesday, September 17. Brother George R. Hedrick and I start from my home this morning, on horseback, for Ohio. We dine at William Fitzwater's, in Brock's Gap, and arrive in the evening at Isaac Dasher's on the South Fork, Hardy County, Virginia, where we stay over night.
Wednesday, September 18. Come to Isaac Shobe's for breakfast, and on to Parks's for dinner. Meeting in the afternoon at Parks's. John 3 is read. On the way to-day Brother Hedrick and I talked over the interpretation we are to give the Lord's words in the thirteenth verse of the chapter read this afternoon. These are the words: "And no man hath ascended up to heaven." I asked Brother Hedrick if Elijah had not ascended to heaven? I quoted to him the very words recorded in the eleventh verse of the second chapter of Second Kings: "And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Brother Hedrick confessed that a first thought on our Lord's words might lead the mind to conclude that there is a want of harmony between what he says to Nicodemus and what is plainly said of Elijah. But he removed the difficulty from my mind at once by explaining the Lord's words to mean that no one in his own strength or by virtue of his own power had ascended to heaven. "Elijah went up to heaven, it is true," said he, "but the horses of fire and the chariot of fire by which he went up, beautifully and impressively symbolize the Lord's hand by which he was taken up. And besides this, we read in 2 Kings 2:1, 'And it came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.' Here it is plainly implied that the Lord took up Elijah into heaven. And this falls in as a part of the great lesson the Lord was seeking to impress upon the mind of Nicodemus, the great truth that the Lord alone has power to lift men, through the regeneration, up to heaven." Stay all night at Parks's.
Thursday, September 19. We go to Stingley's for breakfast; to Eliza Hays's for dinner (still in Hardy County, Virginia), and stay all night at Gilpin's. We are now within sixteen miles of the Maryland line.
Friday, September 20. To-day we passed through what is called the Glades and Wilderness, to the Briery mountain. A very lonely road; but the companionship of a man and a brother like George Hedrick makes solitude enjoyable. Only those who have experienced the agreeableness of a bright, serene, calm and contented mind and heart, such as I find in Brother Hedrick, can ever realize the pleasure of such company. It does seem to me that we can almost adopt toward each other the beautiful sentiment of love which Ruth expressed for Naomi: "Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people. Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried." We fed our horses and took breakfast at Smith's tavern, in Preston County, Virginia; took dinner at Bransonville, and find ourselves here at Brother Jacob Thomas's, where we are spending the night.
Saturday, September 21. Meeting in the schoolhouse near Brother Thomas's. Deuteronomy, eighteenth chapter is read. I spoke on the latter portion of the chapter read, from the fifteenth verse to the end. I spoke particularly on the following words: "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." This was spoken to the children of Israel. What follows was spoken directly to Moses: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." I tried to show these people the great danger there is in a life of sin. The great Prophet spoken of and promised in the words of my text is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time he appeared. The prophecy just read was recorded by Moses very nearly fifteen hundred years before it was fulfilled by the appearing of our Savior. This single consideration may serve to remind us of the faithfulness of God in fulfilling his Word. And our blessed Lord while in the flesh more than once turned the eyes of his disciples to the prophecies that foretold his coming. In one place he said to the people: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." After his resurrection, on his way to Emmaus, in company with two of his sorrowing disciples who had not yet fully learned the truth of his having risen, he said in reference to his sufferings and death: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me."
I am now prepared to tell you, and I trust you are prepared to hear some of the particulars in which Christ Jesus was like unto Moses. You know the text says: "A Prophet like unto me." This is the language of Moses. The Lord God had just before told him this. We will now turn to some of the points in the comparison of Moses with Christ. Moses told the people to believe what he told them and obey the commands he gave them. He taught them that if they would obey the commands and ordinances which God gave and established through him they would receive the favor of the Lord, and that as a reward for their obedience he would bless them exceedingly. But if they would turn away from him, he would turn away from them, and multiply their troubles greatly. Christ Jesus does the same. Just at the close of the most wonderful sermon the world has ever heard preached, a sermon in which all the moral and spiritual relations of men to each other and to God, together with the duties growing out of these relations, are set forth the Lord says: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
Friends, let me say to you that each and every one of you is building a house for himself on one or the other of these foundations. Your life, your every-day life, from beginning to end, is the house you are building. If your life, from love to the Lord, is based upon the solid rock of his Revealed Truth, it will stand the temptations and trials symbolized by the floods and winds; but if not, it will never be able to stand, and great will be its fall. Some may think that because God is long-suffering, and does not punish sin in this world so manifestly as he sometimes did in former times, he is becoming more merciful and takes less account of sin than formerly. But this is a very great mistake. God has always been quite as merciful as he could be consistently with his justice and holiness; and the warning given in Hebrews 2:2 should be heeded. This is the warning: "If every transgression and disobedience" under Moses, "received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Notice this also from the same book: "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"
Again: The children of Israel were baptized unto Moses, that is, into a visible covenant with him, in the cloud and in the Red Sea, as they passed through. In this act of baptism, by which they declared their willingness to follow him as their leader, but the one action was required, and that action was their passing between the walls of water on the right hand and on the left hand, with the cloud overhead completely shutting them in from the world. But the Christian, to be a true follower of the great Prophet of whom we are particularly speaking, is required to submit to a threefold baptism, which is an immersion of the body in water in the name of the Father who loved us and gave his Son; another immersion in the name of the Son who redeems and saves us; and lastly an immersion in the name of the Holy Ghost who convinces of sin, who comforts us, enlightens us as to our duties, sanctifies and makes us meet for heaven.