And what, then, can come wrong to you, O honourable witnesses of His kingly truth? Men have no more of you to work upon than some inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing, and phlegmatic clay. Your spirits are above their Benches, Courts, or High Commissions. Your souls, your love to Christ, your faith, cannot be summoned nor sentenced, nor accused nor condemned, by pope, deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a free lord, and cannot be a captive. All the malice of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a believer; and death, at the worst, can get but a clay pawn[416] in keeping till your Lord make[417] the King's keys, and open your graves. Therefore, upon luck's head (as we use to say) take your fill of His love, and let a post-way or causeway be laid betwixt your prison and heaven, and go up and visit your treasure. Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon His love, till eternity come in time's room, and possess you of your eternal happiness. Keep your love to Christ, lay up your faith in heaven's keeping, and follow the Chief of the house of the martyrs that witnessed a fair confession before Pontius Pilate. Your cause and His is all one. The opposers of His cause are like drunken judges and transported, who, in their cups, would make acts and laws in their drunken courts that the sun should not rise and shine on the earth, and send their officers and pursuivants to charge the sun and moon to give no more light to the world; and would enact in their court-books, that the sea, after once ebbing, should never flow again. But would not the sun, moon, and sea break these acts, and keep their Creator's directions? The devil (the great fool, and father of these under-fools) is older and more malicious than wise, that setteth the spirits in earth on work to contend and clash with heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates and law-summons to our Sun, to our great Star of heaven, Jesus, not to shine in the beauty of His Gospel to the chosen and bought ones. O thou fair and fairest Sun of righteousness, arise and shine in Thy strength, whether earth or hell will or not. O victorious, O royal, O stout, princely Soul-conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth; stretch out Thy sceptre as far as the sun shineth, and the moon waxeth and waneth. Put on Thy glittering crown, O Thou Maker of kings, and make but one stride, or one step of the whole earth, and travel in the greatness of Thy strength (Isa. lxii. 1, 2). And let Thy apparel be red, and all dyed with the blood of Thy enemies. Thou art fallen righteous Heir by line to the kingdoms of the world.
[416] A security of clay or earth. Often, in his sermon on Dan. vi. 26, before the House of Commons, 1644, he uses such expressions as, "Clay triumpheth over angels and hell, through the strength of Jesus" (p. 8); "Men are but pieces of breathing, laughing, and then dying, clay" (p. 41).
[417] Is it not "_take_?"
Laugh ye at the giddy-headed clay pots, and stout, brain-sick worms, that dare say in good earnest, "This man shall not reign over us!" as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown, which of them should have it. I know that ye believe the coming of Christ's kingdom; and that there is a hole out of your prison, through which ye see daylight. Let not faith be dazzled with temptations from a dying Deputy,[418] and from a sick Prelate. Believe under a cloud, and wait for Him when there is no moonlight nor starlight. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold on the sure salvation of God, when clouds and darkness are about you, and appearance of rotting in the prison before you. Take heed of unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon Christ. Beware of "Doth His promise fail for evermore?" (Ps. lxxvii. 8). For it was a man, and not God, that said it, who dreamed that a promise of God could fail, fall aswoon, or die. We can make God sick, or His promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a plea with Christ. O sweet, O stout word of faith, "Though He may slay me, yet will I trust in Him!" (Job xiii. 15). O sweet epitaph, written upon the grave-stone of a dying believer, namely, "I died hoping, and my dust and ashes believe in life!" Faith's eyes, that can see through a mill-stone, can see through a gloom of God, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast Christ in the dark; surely ye shall see the salvation of God. Your adversaries are ripe and dry for the fire. Yet a little while, and they shall go up in a flame; the breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone, shall kindle about them (Isa. xxx. 33).
[418] Deputy, or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.