Galatians.--The apostle would establish the saints in personal, immediate confidence in God, from which Judaism was withdrawing them. He does this by showing them his own commission, revelations, experience, and acts, all immediate and personal (Gal. 1, 2); and then by challenges and reasonings. (Gal. 3.) Thus he would form Christ in them, the spirit of the free woman. (Gal. 4.) Hope and service of love would be the fruit of this. (Gal. 5.) And so, personal and immediate with God, would he have them in commonest duties (Gal. 6: 14); and in like spirit he closes with his body and their spirit. He would set each of us for himself at the door of the tabernacle to learn the secrets of God for ourselves. (Lev. 8, 9.) The patriarchs, sinners in John's gospel, as well as Paul, went down to Arabia; that is, they needed no ordinances [like Israel under law], having immediate, personal communion with God in Christ and the promises. Paul would have Peter take that journey (Gal. 2), and the Galatians take it again. (Gal. 3, 4.)
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John Gifford Bellett was an Irish Christian writer and theologian, and was influential in the beginning of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Bellett was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was educated first at the Grammar School in Exeter, England, then at Trinity College Dublin, where he excelled in Classics, and afterwards in London. It was in Dublin that, as a layman, he first became acquainted with John Nelson Darby, then a minister in the established Church of Ireland, and in 1829 the pair began meeting with others such as Edward Cronin and Francis Hutchinson for communion and prayer.
Bellett had become a Christian as a student and by 1827 was a layman serving the Church. In a letter to James McAllister, written in 1858, he describes the episcopal charge of William Magee, Archbishop of Dublin, that sought for greater state protection for the Church. The Erastian nature of the charge offended Darby particularly, but also many others including Bellett.
The pair bonded particularly over prophetic issues, and attended meetings and discussions together at the home of Lady Powerscourt, and Bellett and Darby (along with the Brethren movement in particular) were particularly associated with dispensationalism and premillenialism.
Bellett wrote many articles and books on scriptural subjects, his most famous works being The Patriarchs, The Evangelists and The Minor Prophets.