"I quite admit typical teaching, but I fear imagination. It is to my soul as a delicious wine when it is brought out from the Word. I do not mean by typical teaching the exposition of types in the stricter meaning of the word, but those pictorial touches that come out here and there when passing. The danger in this is the attempt to construct a system, and run one picture into another as a connected whole. This is dangerous. One picture may succeed another, but may shadow things not connected at all. Nor should a saint make an object of getting truth thus expressed. It argues a false taste, and works mischief in others. Plain, solid truth should always be the basis. A good appetite for this is a wholesome sign. It is a sickly appetite that seeks habitual nourishment from delicacies." F. P.
FRAGMENT.
Quickness of moral perception depends on the maintenance of a Nazarite separation from all and everything that might cloud our souls. Take the sons of Aaron for example. They were commanded not to drink wine or strong drink when they went into the tabernacle of the congregation lest they should die, and that they might put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, etc. (Lev. 10) This is an abiding principle; and hence when a believer forgets his heavenly calling, and yields to the indulgence of earthly joys, is "drunk with wine" instead of being "filled with the Spirit," it is impossible for him to discern between things that differ, or to perceive what is suitable, morally suitable, to God. No greater mistake can thus be made than to expect a right judgment upon moral questions from worldly Christians - They may be perfectly sincere and upright, and may at the same time desire to see the truth, but they have lost their spiritual discernment; and where this is the case truth will soon fail, and he that departeth from evil will be accounted mad.