I had now been "settled," to use a Dissenting phrase, for nearly
eighteen months. While I was ill I had no heart in my work, and the
sermons I preached were very poor and excited no particular suspicion.
But with gradually returning energy my love of reading revived, and
questions which had slumbered again presented themselves. I continued
for some time to deal with them as I had dealt with the atonement at
college. I said that Jesus was the true Paschal Lamb, for that by His
death men were saved from their sins, and from the consequences of
them; I said that belief in Christ, that is to say, a love for Him, was
more powerful to redeem men than the works of the law. All this may
have been true, but truth lies in relation. It was not true when I,
understanding what I understood by it, taught it to men who professed
to believe in the Westminster Confession. The preacher who preaches it
uses a vocabulary which has a certain definite meaning, and has had
this meaning for centuries. He cannot stay to put his own
interpretation upon it whenever it is upon his lips, and so his hearers
are in a false position, and imagine him to be much more orthodox than
he really is.

For some time I fell into this snare, until one day I happened to be
reading the story of Balaam. Balaam, though most desirous to prophesy
smooth things for Balak, had nevertheless a word put into his mouth by
God. When he came to Balak he was unable to curse, and could do
nothing but bless. Balak, much dissatisfied, thought that a change of
position might alter Balaam's temper, and he brought him away from the
high places of Baal to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. But
Balaam could do nothing better even on Pisgah. Not even a compromise
was possible, and the second blessing was more emphatic than the first.
"God," cried the prophet, pressed sorely by his message, "is not a man,
that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: