Part 32

§ 11. The memory will not be idle, or useless in this blessed work. From that height the saint can look behind him, and before him. And to compare past with present things, must needs raise in the blessed soul an inconceivable esteem and sense of its condition. To stand on that mount, whence we can see the Wilderness and Canaan, both at once; to stand in heaven, and look back on earth, and weigh them together in the balance of a comparing sense and judgment, how must it needs transport the soul, and make it cry out, "Is this the purchase that cost so dear as the blood of Christ? No wonder. O blessed price! and thrice blessed love, that invented, and condescended! Is this the end of believing? Is this the end of the Spirit's workings? Have the gales of grace blown me into such an harbor? Is it hither that Christ hath allured my soul? O blessed way, and thrice blessed end! Is this the glory which the scriptures spoke of, and ministers preached of so much? I see the gospel is indeed good tidings, even tidings of peace and good things, tidings of great joy to all nations! Is my mourning, my fasting, my sad humblings, my heavy walking, come to this? Is my praying, watching, fearing to offend, come to this? Are all my afflictions, Satan's temptations, the world's scorns, and jeers, come to this?—O vile nature, that resisted so much, and so long, such a blessing? Unworthy soul, is this the place thou camest so unwillingly to? Was duty wearisome? Was the world too good to lose? Didst thou stick at leaving all, denying all, and suffering any thing, for this? Wast thou loth to die, to come to this? O false heart, thou hadst almost betrayed me to eternal flames, and lost me this glory! Art thou not now ashamed, my soul, that ever thou didst question that love which brought thee hither? That thou wast jealous of the faithfulness of thy Lord? That thou suspectedst his love, when thou shouldst only have suspected thyself? That ever thou didst quench a motion of his Spirit? And that thou shouldst misinterpret those providences, and repine at those ways, which have such an end? Now thou art sufficiently convinced, that thy Redeemer was saving thee, as well when he crossed thy desires, as when he granted them; when he broke thy heart, as when he bound it up. No thanks to thee, unworthy self, for this received crown; but to Jehovah, and the Lamb, be glory for ever."