Christ, SO as to open his heart to it, and close with it, you shall soon hear that the foundations of the prison are shaken, its doors thrown open, and the chains fallen off the poor creature's legs. Truth cannot itself be bound, nor will it dwell in a soul that lies bound in sin's prison ; and therefore when once truth and the soul are agreed, or rather Christ and the soul, who are brought together by truth, then the poor creature may lift up his head with joy, for his redemp- tion and jail-delivery from his spiritual bondage draws nigh ; yea, the day is come, the key is in the lock already to let him out. It is impossible we should be acquainted with truth, as it is in Jesus, and be mere strangers to this liberty that attends it, Eph. iv. 19 — 21. In a word, lastly. Truth is victorious. It is great, and shall prevail at last. It is the great counsel of God, and though many fine plots and devices are found in the hearts of men, which shew what they'would do, yet the counsel of the Lord shall stand ; all their eggs are addle, when they have sat longest on them ; alas ! they want power to hatch what their malice sits brooding on. Sometimes, I confess, the enemies to truth get the militia of this lower world into their hands, and then truth seems to go to the gi'ound, and those that witness to it are even slain ; yet then it is more than their persecutors can do to get them laid under ground in their grave, Rev, xi. 9. Some, that were never thought on, shall strike in on truth's side, and forbid the burial. Persecutors need not be at cost for marble to write the memorial of their victories in, dust will serve well enough, for they are not like to last so long. Three days and a half the witnesses may lie dead in the streets, and truth sit disconsolate by them ; but within a while they are walking, and truth triumphing again. If persecutors could kill their successors, then their work might be tlrought to stand strong, needing not to fear another to pull down what they have set up ; and yet then their work would lie as open to Heaven, and might be as easily hindered, as theirs at Bal)el. Who loves not to be on the Avinning side ? Choase truth for thy side, and thou hast it. News may come that truth is sick, but never that it is dead. No, it is error is short- lived : ' a lying tongue is but for a moment ;' but truth's age runs parallel with God's eternity. It shall live to see their heads laid in the dust, and to walk over their graves, tliat were so busy to make one for her. Live, did I say ? yea, reign in peace with those who now are willing to suffer with and for it. And ■wouldst thou not, Christian, be one among that goodly train of victors, who shall attend on Christ's triumphant chariot into the heavenly city, there to take the crown, and sit down in thy throne, with those that have kept the field when Christ and his truth were militant here on earth ? Thus, wouldst thou but in thy thoughts wipe away tears and blood, which now cover the face of suffer- ing truth, and present it to thy e3'e as it shall look in gloiy, thou couldst not but cleave to it with a love stronger than death.
But, Secondly, If yet there remains any qualm of fear on thy heart, from the wrath of bloody men threatening tliee for thy profession of the truth, then to a heart inflamed with the love of truth, labour to add a heart filled with the fear of that wrath which God hath in store for all that apostatize from the truth. When you chance to burn your finger, you hold it to the fire, which being a greater fire, draws out the other. Thus, when thy thoughts are scorched, and thy heart scared with the fire of man's wrath, hold them a while to hell fire, which God hath prepared for the fearful, Rev. xxi. 8, and all that run away from truth's colours, Heb. x. 39, and thou wilt lose the sense of the one for fear of the other. Ignosce impcrator, saith the holy man, tti carcerem, Dens gehennam minalur ; ' Pardon me, O em])eror, if I obey not thy conunand ; thou threatenest a prison, but God a hell.' Observable is that of David, Psa, cxix. 161 : ' Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.' He had no cause to fear them that had no cause to per- secute him ; one threatening out of the word, that sets the point of God's wrath to his heart, scares him more than the worst that the greatest on earth can do to him. Man's wrath, alas ! when hottest, is but a temperate climate to the wrath of the living God. They who have felt both have testified as nuxch. Man's wrath cannot hinder the access of God's love to the creature, which hath made the saints sing in the fire, in spite of their enemies' teetli. But the creature under God's wrath is like one shut up in a close oven, no crevice open to let any of the heat out, or any refreshing in to him.
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22G HAVING YOUR LOINS
CHAPTER VI.