“God shall alone the refuge be”:
The hymn of Samuel Medley (1738-1799)[1]
In 2004 a little-known eighteenth-century hymn, was modified and set to a modern tune by Drew Hodges and recorded by the Christian Rock group Kanon.[2] Only two of the original verses and a new refrain made up the new song entitled How Wise and Good, but the original author was given credit and it was enough to stir interest in discovering the song’s origin. The original hymn, in its entirety, has made an appreciated resurgence in recent years.[3] It is sometimes referred to as Too Wise to be Mistaken, Too Good to be Unkind, or simply Too Wise but its title is God alone shall the refuge be and its author is Samuel Medley, a Particular Baptist pastor, hymnwriter, and poet. The hymn can be found in at least nine hymnals, published as early as 1809 in A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs and as recently as 2016 in the Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book[4] and Medley’s own Hymns. The Public Worship and Private Devotions of True Christians Assisted in Some Thoughts in Verse: Principally Drawn from Select Passages of the Word of God published in 1800, the year following his death.[5]
Today, Medley is best remembered as a hymnwriter. He wrote more than two hundred hymns.[6] Among his best-known hymns are I know that my redeemer lives,[7] Awake, my soul, in joyful lays,[8] and O could we speak the matchless worth.[9] William Rawson Stevenson[10] wrote of “the warmth and occasional pathos” of Medley’s hymns, specifying that twenty of them had gained considerable vogue in his day.[11] Yet Medley was more than a hymnwriter; he was also a well-known, greatly admired and beloved pastor for nearly thirty years and he was one of the Particular Baptist’s gifted poets.[12] He was a man who understood God’s grace. Robert Halley[13] ranked Medley as a “great pastor and a small poet.”[14] Medley’s poetic skill with the pen, his love and trust in God, his zeal for preaching the gospel, and his pastoral devotion to his flock are all founded on his discovery of his refuge in Jesus Christ, his Savior.
In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comfort delight my soul. Ps. xciv. 19.[15]
In a sermon delivered on May 23, 1875, Charles H. Spurgeon referenced a minister and hymnwriter who is little known today, but was well-known in his own day.
I know that God hears the sincere and earnest prayers even of unregenerate persons concerning common things. I read, yesterday, a story of Mr. Samuel Medley, of whose hymns we have many in our hymn books, especially that one about God’s loving-kindness. Mr. Medley, in his younger days, was an officer on board one of his majesty’s men-of-war. There was a very sharp fight in which a number of French vessels were destroyed and young Medley was busy taking the minutes upon the quarter deck. One of the officers, passing by the place where he was sitting, said, “Mr. Medley, you are wounded.” He had not perceived it, but the blood was streaming down his leg and he had to be taken down to the hospital. After the surgeon had examined him, he said to him, “You will have to lose your leg. I am afraid you cannot live unless amputation takes place.” Now Mr. Medley had a godly mother and father, and other gracious people in his family, but he was a godless, Christless sinner—as wild as he could be. Yet he turned his face to the wall of his little bedroom and sought the Lord to spare him that leg. When the doctor came to him the next morning, he said, “I never saw such a case as this before. There has been more healing done in the last twelve hours than I ever knew to take place in a leg in my life! I think you will not need to have it off, after all.” That remarkable answer to prayer made a deep impression on young Medley’s heart and I believe that biographies will show that, in many cases, God has heard the prayers of unregenerate persons because He meant to eventually save them—and hearing their prayers led them to believe in Him and helped them to exercise that real spiritual faith which brought salvation to their souls.[16]
And save Samuel Medley, God did. His injury occurred during the Battle of Lagos between Britain and France which took place over two days, on the 18th and 19th of August 1759, during the Seven Years’ War. His fleet being ordered home, Medley was permitted to leave the service until he was completely recovered.[17] He planned to return to naval service but God was to take him another direction.[18] During his recovery Medley stayed for many months in London with his godly grandfather, William Tonge, a retired schoolmaster. It was Tonge’s custom to read some religious tract to Medley on the Lord’s Day. Inwardly Medley dreaded these occurrences but he was prudent enough to be outwardly respectful toward his grandfather,[19] for even in his unsaved state, Medley “held a respectful notion of the piety of his father and grandfather, never doubting but they were honest and sincere in their religious professions.”[20]
On this particular Lord’s Day Medley’s grandfather chose to read a sermon of Isaac Watts[21] on the passage Isaiah 42:6-7.[22] At first Medley was indifferent to the sermon but as his grandfather read on Medley was awakened to his Christless state. With a heart broken under a sense of his guilt and impenitence, and the astonishing forbearance of God towards him he appealed to God for mercy. Medley now began to accompany his grandfather to hear George Whitfield and Andrew Gifford preach.[23] Evident from a few lines in his manuscript, dated July 5, 1760, Medley soon “received the comforts of the Gospel, by a believing view of the fullness and sufficiency of the atonement of the Lord Jesus, a sense of which followed him through all his labors to his dying day.”[24] Medley wrote in his manuscript a passage he modified from a writing of Isaac Watts:
In all my troubles sharp and strong,
My soul to Jesus flies,
My anchor hold is firm in him,
When swelling billows rise.
His comforts bear my spirit up:
I trust a faithful God.
The sure foundation of my hope
Is in a Saviour’s blood.
Loud hallelujahs sing, my soul,
To my Redeemer’s name
In joy and sorrow, life and death,
His love is still the same.[25]
In December 1760 Medley made his public profession of faith and joined the Particular Baptist church in Eagle Street, Holborn, pastored by Dr. Andrew Gifford. A lively, zealous, and warm-hearted Christian, Medley began studying the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek. He already possessed an exceptional education in the classics. Few men in his day had Medley’s advantages, that of having the assistance of his grandfather-schoolmaster and his grandfather’s excellent library.[26] Medley gave up the idea of returning to the navy and, being fond of teaching youth, began a boarding school which flourished until 1766 when he left London. During this time, he married Mary Gill in April 1762. Together they would have one son and seven daughters.[27]
Andrew Gifford believed Medley possessed the abilities for ministry and approached him about it. Medley revealed the subject had been weighing on his mind, so in 1764, while continuing his boarding school, Medley began to study under Gifford with a view to public gospel ministry, which he formally entered into in Aug 1766. In 1767, he accepted the call to become the pastor of a Particular Baptist Church in Watford, Hertfordshire, then the town’s only dissenting congregation.[28] Here he was ordained on July 13, 1768 and had a challenging ministry as it was necessary for him to continue his boarding school to provide for his family. His due diligence to both the pulpit and his boarding school caused him great stress and physical fatigue.[29] He sought God in prayer and determined to follow where Providence led him.
In 1771, Medley was invited to the small Baptist church at Byrom Street, at Liverpool, a place “destitute of the gospel.”[30] In the invitation requesting Medley visit, the church joyfully expressed her intent to meet Medley’s financial needs, “desirous to make you happy and easy in temporal matters, without the fatigue of a school”[31] if he were to become her shepherd and then in her letter calling Medley to be her pastor, the church emphasized again,
…that it is the will of the great head of the church, you should be employed in this part of his vineyard: and knowing, that it is the will of God, that they, who preach the Gospel, should live of the Gospel, so we, as the Lord shall enable us, do purpose to provide a comfortable maintenance for you and yours.[32]
God had answered Medley’s prayers. He accepted the call to take up the struggling cause and moved to Liverpool in April 1772 where he served the congregation at Liverpool faithfully for the next 27 years until his death to “an affectionate people, whose piety, unaffected love, and Christian zeal, were equaled only by their mutual confidence and attachment to each other.[33] It was not long before Medley’s gospel work began bearing fruit. The congregation increased so considerably that in 1773 it was necessary to enlarge the place of worship. The enlarged space was soon filled with “attentive and constant hearers.” [34] The Liverpool congregation continued to grow, and in 1789 a new meeting-house was erected. John Fawcett’s son recorded that Medley’s “popular talents and zealous ministerial labours attracted the attention of multitudes,” many of them becoming “lively, active members, and steady promoters of the cause of Christ in that populous and flourishing town.” The “great accessions to the congregation” meant that frequent enlargements to the church building were necessary “and new ones were successively built.”[35] The once little Baptist congregation at Byrom Street, that seemed hopeless of revival before Medley’s arrival, had become one of the country’s biggest congregations.[36]
No longer required to teach to support his family, Medley was able to focus his time to studying the scriptures in his “regular and methodical manner,”[37] to regular prayer and to frequent preaching of the gospel. Medley’s son summed up his father’s ministry this way:
It pleased God, also, powerfully to attend the word preached by the influences of his Holy Spirit, to the revival, comfort, and encouragement of his people, and for the conversion of many others; and this success, blessed be God, was uniform to the last year of his life. …preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was at once his occupation and delight.[38]
Medley’s popularity continually increased not only in Liverpool and neighboring towns but in London also. He regularly visited London to preach at Tottenham Court Road and Rowland Hill’s Surrey Chapel, and when he did large numbers gathered to hear him preach.[39] Medley spoke “with an affection and impressive energy peculiar to himself.”[40] Given his naval career, Medley’s ministry focused on working among the sailors, talking to them in the streets, preaching to them on the wharves, and especially in the chapel. Medley was well-respected by the sailors who came to hear him because he knew their ways and thoughts and took special pains to instruct them in his preaching.[41]
Of his covenant-keeping God, of whose dispensations he was wont to say, “He is too wise to be mistaken, and too good to be unkind.”[42]
Medley’s son wrote that “the general scope and object of all his [Medley, Sr.] labours,” in preaching and in hymn-writing, was to “humble the pride of fallen man, to exalt the grace of God in his salvation, and to promote real holiness in heart and life.”[43] Many of his letters to friends and family are written in an impromptu verse that stirs the heart of its reader. His poetical talents were usually exercised as a recreation, during the intervals of more important labours, and with a view of contributing to the consolation or amusement of his friends. He “conveyed his sentiments in the plainest and most unstudied language.”[44]
Medley’s sermons were vivid, sometimes on a single word, and adorned with hymns and paraphrases to match. He wrote several hymns for young people, many on prayer, and a series on the Beatitudes; he was one of the first to print them on separate pew-sheets rather than ‘lining out’ for a congregation to follow.[45] His hymns first appeared in pamphlet form but from 1785 began to appear in bound volumes. Most likely the hymn, God shall alone the refuge be, was written prior to 1790 and published as a broadside in any number of missionary newspapers of the day. Later it was published as No. 7 in Gadsby’s Hymns: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship (1814).[46]
The attraction of Medley’s hymns consists less in their poetry than in the warmth and occasional pathos with which they give expression to the Christian experience. They are characterized by the feature of the last line of each verse being entirely or nearly the same.[47] This requires a particular writing skill, because it risks the thought being dominated by the need to repeat the rhyme each time. By their very predictability these repeats were effective aids to teaching and memory.[48]
The hymn, God shall alone the refuge be, is a statement of Medley’s faith that, even in the deepest of temptation and trials, God is, as the repeated refrain says, “too wise to be mistaken, he, too good to be unkind.”[49] Medley reflects on scripture that teach us that Jesus Christ is wisdom; “I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength.” (Prov. 8:14). Medley is also reminding believers of the wisdom and goodness of God as found in Exodus 34:6: “…The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, …”[50] is still the same God for believers today. (The following reflections are taken from Medley’s Memoirs and his sermon The Spiritual Merchant. The bold italics are added for emphasis.)[51]
Stanza 1
God shall alone the refuge be,
And comfort of my mind;
Too wise to be mistaken, He,
Too good to be unkind.
There is only one comforter and true refuge at times of sorrow, our God and Saviour, Christ Jesus, who alone bears us through all life brings.[52] Only the true Christian can be more than a conqueror at such times, solely because of the One who loves us. Medley experienced such comfort and refuge in his pursuit for holiness. It was reflected in his sermons for Christians to make their calling and election sure, “May the true believer, the heavenly merchant, have his heart comforted, his hands strengthened, and be enabled with renewed vigor and delight to pursue his holy, heavenly trade and calling.”[53]
Stanza 2
In all his holy, sovereign will,
He is, I daily find,
Too wise to be mistaken, still
Too good to be unkind.
Medley reminds Christians that the present daily comforts they possess or do not possess depends entirely upon God’s holy, wise, sovereign and good pleasure, for God affords believers what he sees and knows will be best for them. The child of God shall have a sufficient supply of sensible comforts to support him while on this earth, and more is not needful; but he shall be sure at last to possess a blessed happy eternity.[54] This does not mean that Christians should not ask for earthly blessings; Christians are encouraged by God himself to ask for “sensible comforts, but then leave your gracious God to bestow them when and how he sees needful and best for you.”[55]
Stanza 3
When I the tempter’s rage endure,
Tis God supports my mind;
Too wise to be mistaken, sure,
Too good to be unkind.
The Christian should expect the tempter’s rage to be showered on him and trust that God is available to support him with grace-filled endurance. The sinner who has never sensibly suffered from the tempter’s attack should fear that he knows little or nothing of being truly saved. “If the world and Satan never rob thee, to thy sorrow, shame, and grief, before the Lord, it is justly to be feared it is because they [Satan and his minions] think thou has nothing to be robbed of, but thy precious soul and that they have in possession already.”[56] Jesus, seeing how likely his children would be overcome by temptation, commands them to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” (Matt. 6:13).[57] Christian, watch and pray to receive God’s promised support and rejoice that though the Wicked are permitted to rob the believer they cannot destroy him. Blessed be God for this!
Stanza 4
When sore afflictions on me lie,
He is (though I am blind)
Too wise to be mistaken, yea,
Too good to be unkind.
Medley reminds us that because of the Holy Spirit, believers can have complete peace in the midst of afflictions even though they don’t make sense to our natural minds. Presently, we are blind to their benefits. The Lord gives us this peace so that we don’t have to fret through life worrying about what may come next. His peace gives us confidence that our prayers are heard and answered according to His will. I believe Medley could easily be referring to Psalm 94:16-19 with this verse.
16Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers? 17If the LORD had not been my help my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. 18When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up. 19 When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.[58]
Stanza 5
What tho’ I can’t his goings see,
Nor all his footsteps find?
Too wise to be mistaken, He,
Too good to be unkind.
Medley is clearly referring to Romans 11:33-36 when he reminds us that we can’t his goings see or trace his footsteps with perfect understanding.
33Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.[59]
Despite our finite abilities, true believers possess the promises of God and can consider them already fulfilled. The true believer has only to look to his Bible to know and grasp onto those promises. The Christian’s:
comfort is the comfort of God, and comes from the God of all comfort; his joy of the holy Ghost, and his assurance is founded in and built upon the free, faithful and unchangeable love and grace of God, who he knows abideth faithful and neither will, nor can, break his promise, or deny himself. And therefore, he is emboldened to say that because Jesus lives he shall live also.[60]
Stanza 6
Hereafter he will make me know,
And I shall surely find,
He was too wise to err, and O,
Too good to be unkind.
Medley is reminding Christ-filled sinners that this time of being unable to understand the ways and mind of God, will soon come to an end. The reference found in 1 Corinthians 13:12 is aptly applied to this verse, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”[61] We will know, and find God did not err, he is too wise and good.
Stanza 7
Thou art, and be thy name ador’d,
And be my soul resign’d;
Too wise to be mistaken, Lord,
Too good to be unkind.
Medley preached to the believer, the wisdom of Christ is certain, unerring and infallible. His name should be adored by his children. The soul should gladly be resigned to that wisdom which comes “from above” (Jam. 3:17).[62] This Wisdom, is “either the LORD Jesus Christ himself, or the work of the Lord the Spirit in their souls, making them wise unto salvation.”[63]
The Lord Jesus Christ is said in scripture to be made unto his people wisdom, and he it is who does, and who only can, make them wise unto salvation, through faith in him.[64] Neither natural wisdom, nor what is in scripture called the wisdom of the flesh; nor the wisdom of this world, are sufficient for the carrying on this [Christian life]. It must and only can be carried on by what the apostle James calls, “the wisdom that is from above;”[65]
Too wise to be mistaken, he, too good to be unkind
Medley preached and wrote hymns and poetic verse “to glorify his God and Redeemer, whose glorious person, precious name, heavenly love, and everlasting salvation, are the subjects” of his work.[66] His preaching, hymns, and verse illustrated the sincerity of his character, as a Christian, a devoted shepherd of his flock, and as an affectionate and sympathizing friend. Knowing the true character of God was a great comfort to Medley. Many of his sermons, hymns, and letters, referenced God and Redeemer being too wise to be mistaken, he, too good to be unkind.[67]
For some years Medley’s health declined, so gradual that it was not obvious to those around him because he delighted in his spiritual work, which “acted the part of a salutary medicine.”[68] In his last year of this earthly life, Medley’s poor health demanded he stop preaching. His last sermon to his beloved congregation was on Easter Sunday, 1799. He chose the passage Deuteronomy 8:2, “And thou shalt remember all the way, which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness.”[69] From the first of Medley’s illness he struggled with depression, but his hope and expectation from God was unshaken.[70] His final words until his voice faded were “Dying is sweet work! Sweet work! My Father! My heavenly Father! I am looking up, I am looking up to my dear Jesus, my God! My portion! My all in all! Glory! Glory! Home, home!”[71] He yielded up his Spirit with a smiling countenance on the evening of July 17, 1799, at age 61.
Perhaps the verse, too wise to be mistaken, he, too good to be unkind, especially as it is found in his hymn, God shall alone the refuge be, originated with Medley.[72] Some have asked the question formally over the subsequent centuries. It’s possible the verse became a catchphrase used by eighteenth-century Baptists in England prior to Samuel Medley but as far as I can tell it is traced to Medley as its author about 1777. Whether this is true or not, Samuel Medley is, at least in part, responsible for its popularity today. Praise our God, who is too wise to be mistaken, too good to be unkind.
HYMN CXXVIII
The Wisdom and Goodness of God.
1 God shall alone the refuge be,
And comfort of my mind;
Too wise to be mistaken, He,
Too good to be unkind.
2 In all his holy, sovereign will,
He is, I daily find,
Too wise to be mistaken, still
Too good to be unkind.
3 When I the tempter’s rage endure,
Tis God supports my mind;
Too wise to be mistaken, sure,
Too good to be unkind.
4 When sore afflictions on me lie,
He is (though I am blind)
Too wise to be mistaken, yea,
Too good to be unkind.
5 What though I can’t his goings see,
Nor all his footsteps find?
Too wise to be mistaken, He,
Too good to be unkind.
6 Hereafter he will make me know,
And I shall surely find,
He was too wise to err, and O,
Too good to be unkind.
7 Thou art, and be thy name ador’d,
And be my soul resign’d;
Too wise to be mistaken, Lord,
Too good to be unkind.[73]
About the Author
[1] For the life sketch that follows I am indebted to the following sources: a reprint of Medley’s memoirs compiled by his son, Memoirs of the Late Rev. Samuel Medley, Compiled by His Son: to which are annexed two sermons and a variety of miscellaneous pieces in verse. (London: T. Bensley, 1800); and an original of Medley’s Hymns, Hymns. The Public Worship and Private Devotions of True Christians Assisted in Some Thoughts in Verse: Principally Drawn from Select Passages of the Word of God. (Great Turnstile, Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Luke Hanfard, 1800), 3-292.
[2] See Drew Hodge and Samuel Medley, How Wise and Good (n.p.: Vital Communications, 2004), www.desertspringschurch.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/How-Wise-and-Good.pdf.
[3] See ‘Appearance of this hymn’ in hymnals timeline. “God Shall Alone the (My) Refuge Be,” Hymnary.org, accessed July 22, 2018, https://hymnary.org/text/god_shall_alone_the_refuge_be.
[4] See list of hymnals. “God Shall Alone the (My) Refuge Be,” Hymnary.org, accessed July 22, 2018, https://hymnary.org/search?qu=textName%3Agod%20shall%20alone%20the%20refuge%20be%20in%3Ainstance.
[5] See HYMN CXXVII. Samuel Medley, Hymns. The Public Worship and Private Devotions of True Christians Assisted in Some Thoughts in Verse: Principally Drawn from Select Passages of the Word of God (Great Turnstile, Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Luke Hansard, 1800), 151-52.
[6] The number of Medley’s hymns included in his hymnal is 232. Medley, Hymns.
[7] See HYMN LXXIII. Medley, Hymns, 87.
[8] See HYMN CLXXXI. Medley, Hymns, 221.
[9] Christopher Knapp, Who Wrote Our Hymns (Oak Park, Ill: Wilson Foundation, 1925), 99-100.
[10] William Rawson Stevenson is a British author of 19th-century Baptist hymnals.
[11] Alexander Gordon, Dictionary of National Biography/Vol 37 Masquerier – Millyng (London: Elder Smith & Co, 1894), s.v. “Samuel Medley,” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Medley,_Samuel_(1738-1799)_(DNB00).
[12] John Cargill, “Psalms, Hymns: Hymnology of Christians Known as Particular Baptists,” The Faith of God’s Elect, accessed July 13, 2018, http://www.the-faith.org.uk/sbhymnology.html.
[13] Robert Halley is an early 19th-century English Congregationalist minister and abolitionist.
[14] Gordon, Dictionary of National Biography, “Samuel Medley.”
[15] See title page. Medley, Hymns.
[16] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons Volume 51: 1905 (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.), under “No. 2950 True and Not True,” https://www.ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons51.xxxv.html.
[17] Samuel Medley, Memoirs of the Late rev. Samuel Medley, Compiled by His Son: to which are annexed two sermons and a variety of miscellaneous pieces in verse. (London: T. Bensley, 1800), 73.
[18] “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” Proverbs 16:9 (ESV).
[19] Medley, Memoirs, 75.
[20] Ibid, 67.
[21] Isaac Watts was a close friend of Medley’s father, Guy Medley. Medley, Memoirs, 43.
[22] 6I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; 7to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. (KJV).
[23] Medley, Memoirs, 76-77.
[24] Ibid, 77-78.
[25] Ibid, 77.
[26] Ibid 78-79.
[27] Ibid 115.
[28] Alexander Gordon, Dictionary of National Biography/Vol 37 Masquerier – Millyng (London: Elder Smith & Co, 1894), s.v. “Samuel Medley,” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Medley,_Samuel_(1738-1799)_(DNB00).
[29] Medley, Memoirs, 82.
[30] Ibid, 84.
[31]Ibid, 86.
[32] Ibid, 89.
[33] Ibid, 90.
[34] Ibid, 91.
[35] John Fawcett Jr, Life of John Fawcett, 188-89. See Anthony Cross, Useful Learning: Neglected Means of Grace in the Reception of the Evangelical Revival Among English Particular Baptists (Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, 2017), 133.
https://books.google.com/books?id=p2PdDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA487&lpg=PA487&dq=Samuel+Medley+-+Preacher,+Pasto.
[36] Praise Trust, “Medley, Samuel: Author,” Praise! accessed August 8, 2018,
http://www.praise.org.uk/hymnauthor/medley-samuel/.
[37] Medley, Memoirs, 82.
[38] Ibid, 90.
[39] Ibid, 91-92.
[40] Ibid, 93.
41 Cross, Useful Learning, 135; Medley, Hymns, 1-292; and Samuel Medley, Hymns. By the rev. S. Medley, of Liverpool. The Second Edition, Enlarged, 2nd ed., Gale’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online Print Series (1789; repr., n.p.: Gale Ecco, 2018), 1-125.
[42] Medley, Memoirs, 106.
[43] Ibid, 95.
[44] Ibid, vi-vii.
[45] Praise Trust, Medley, http://www.praise.org.uk/hymnauthor/medley-samuel/
[46] “Ketcham Didn’t Say It,” Regular Baptist Churches, October 9, 2007, http://www.garbc.org/news/ketcham-didnt-say-it/.
[47] The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine, The Inquirer: Questions Requiring Answers, 1870, 473.
[48] Praise Trust, Medley, http://www.praise.org.uk/hymnauthor/medley-samuel/
[49] See hymn. God shall alone the refuge be. https://hymnary.org/text/god_shall_alone_the_refuge_be.
[50] Often times this verse is referenced with the hymn, God shall alone the refuge be. See page scans of hymnals. https://hymnary.org/text/god_shall_alone_the_refuge_be.
[51] Medley, Memoirs, 1-351; and Samuel Medley, The Spiritual Merchant Described and the Gain of Godliness Proved (London: J. W. Pasham, 1778), 1-56.
[52] Ps. 18:2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
[53] Medley, The Spiritual Merchant, 2.
[54] Ibid, 33.
[55] Ibid, 49.
[56] Ibid, 25.
[57] KJV
[58] ESV
[59] ESV
[60] Medley, The Spiritual Merchant, 43.
[61] ESV
[62] James 3:17, But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (ESV)
[63] Medley, The Spiritual Merchant, 2.
[64] See Prov. 8:14.
[65] Medley, The Spiritual Merchant, 16.
[66] Medley, Hymns, iii.
[67] Medley, Memoirs, 106-293. See confirmation, sermon and correspondence examples on pgs. 106, 150, 201, 264, 268 & 290 respectively. Medley was always ready to encourage believers with the unfailing love of God.
[68] Ibid, 96.
[69] KJV
[70] Medley, Memoirs, 96-99.
[71] Ibid, 121.
[72] The British Controversialist, The Inquirer: Questions Requiring Answers, 398; and “Ketcham Didn’t Say It,” October 9, 2007, http://www.garbc.org/news/ketcham-didnt-say-it/.
[73] God shall alone the refuge be as written in Medley’s Hymns. The Public Worship and Private Devotions of True Christians Assisted in Some Thoughts in Verse: Principally Drawn from Select Passages of the Word of God, 1800.
This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
