John Baillie

A Memoir of Adelaide Leaper Newton John Baillie

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt: ... And the way in which he introduces Him,--' That which was from the beginning!' It seems a natural and favourite train of thought, for He began His Gospel in the same way. Intimate as he had been with Jesus as the Son of man, he loved to go further back and think of Him as the eternal Son of the Father. It would seem as if Jesus loved to go back in thought to the same point,--see Prov. viii. 22--31, where He declares that, in the beginning, He was rejoicing always before God. So that it is just a proof how John had caught his Master's spirit." "And then," she proceeds, " ' which we have seen with our eyes.' Jesus said that His disciples were to be His 'witnesses' (John xv. 21); and John could declare that it was no delusive imagination, but actual reality, what he had seen (i. 14.) He had seen the sufferings of Gethsemane, the scenes in the palace of Caiaphas, the death on the cross, the empty sepulchre (xx. 8), and his risen Saviour (xx. 20, 25, 29). Therefore, he could speak with all the holy confidence of a man knowing that he has the truth on his side (xix. 35). But his tender spirit was not content to bear so cold and heartless a testimony; so he added--' Which we have looked upon,' as though his heart had moved him to gaze, to watch, to look with eager eye! As, for instance, when he heard Jesus say from the cross, 'Behold thy mother!' could he ever forget how he had looked up to Jesus, while Jesus looked down upon him? He seemed, too, to notice the very minutest actions of Jesus, twice recording of Him that in prayer He 'lifted up His eyes' (xi. 41 and xviii. 1). It reminds one of our eyes waiting on the Lord, as David says, in Ps. cxxiii. 2. "Then it follows," she continues, "' And our hands have handled.""...