Part 418

But let me, my very dear and worthy Lord, most humbly beseech you, by the mercies of God, by the consolations of His Spirit, by the dear blood and wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salvation of your soul, by your compearance before the awful face of a sin-revenging and dreadful Judge, not to set in comparison together your soul's peace, Christ's love, and His kingly honour now called in question, with your place, honour, house, or ease, that an inch of time will make out of the way. I verily believe that Christ is now begging a testimony of you, and is saying, "And will ye also leave Me?" It is possible that the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out and appearing before others to back and countenance Christ, the fairest among the sons of men, the Prince of the kings of the earth. "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings: for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool" (Isa. li. 7, 8). When the Lord will begin, He will make an end, and mow down His adversaries; and they shall lie before Him like withered hay, and their bloom be shaken off them. Consider how many thousands in this kingdom ye shall cause to fall and stumble, if ye go with them; and that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who do now stand before the Lord for you and your house. And further; when the time of your accounts cometh, and your one foot shall be within the border of eternity, and the eyestrings shall break, and the face wax pale, and the poor soul shall look out at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out, and ye shall find yourself arraigned before the Judge of quick and dead, to answer for your putting to your hand, with the rest confederated against Christ, to the overturning of His ark, and the loosing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land, and shall certainly see yourself mired in a course of apostasy--then, then, a king's favour and your worm-eaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you! The Lord hath enlightened you with the knowledge of His will; and as the Lord liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel, the mother of fornications. God said of old, and continueth to say the same to you, "Come out of her, My people, lest ye be partakers of her plagues." Will ye, then, go with them, and set your lip to the whore's golden cup, and drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with them? Oh, poor hungry honour! Oh, cursed pleasure! and, oh, damnable ease, bought with the loss of God! How many will pray for you! what a sweet presence shall ye find of Christ under your sufferings, if ye will lay down your honours and place at the feet of Christ. What a fair recompense of reward! I avouch before the Lord that I am now showing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars. If ye will set it on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong your posterity. Ye have the word of a King for an hundred-fold more in this life (if it be good for you), and for life everlasting also. Make not Christ a liar, in distrusting His promise. Kings of clay cannot back you when you stand before Him. A straw for them and their hungry heaven, that standeth on this side of time! A fig for the day's-smile of a worm! Consider who have gone before you to eternity, and would have given a world for a new occasion of avouching that truth. It is true they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to those that are at ease, for suffering these things for it. But it is not time to judge of our losses by the morning; stay till the evening, and we will count with the best of them.